From cbmvax!uunet!CUVMB.BITNET!LOJBAN Mon Jun 29 15:41:41 1992 Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Mon, 29 Jun 92 15:41 EDT Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA03989; Mon, 29 Jun 92 15:42:43 EDT Received: from pucc.Princeton.EDU by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA20112; Mon, 29 Jun 92 15:15:02 -0400 Message-Id: <9206291915.AA20112@relay1.UU.NET> Received: from PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU by pucc.Princeton.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 7425; Mon, 29 Jun 92 15:14:30 EDT Received: by PUCC (Mailer R2.08 ptf033) id 5366; Mon, 29 Jun 92 15:13:24 EDT Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1992 19:59:25 BST Reply-To: Ivan A Derzhanski Sender: Lojban list From: Ivan A Derzhanski Subject: De-emphatic particle To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann In-Reply-To: CJ FINE's message of Mon, 29 Jun 1992 18:26:04 BST <442.9206291814@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> Status: RO X-Status: > Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1992 18:26:04 BST > From: CJ FINE > > I have got hold of a copy of Martin's Dagur grammar, and I am fairly > sure that the 'de-emphatic particle' we were told of is a > misunderstanding of his admittedly scanty description. I was left with exactly the same impression from John's quote from Ramsey's _Languages of China_. It says there that "the particle -(i)ni 'as for' reduces emphasis on the word to which it attaches". Now `as for' is often used to gloss the Arabic _7amma:_, and I suppose here it means that the Dagur particle serves to introduce a new topic, as the Japanese _wa_. With Lojban's current wealth of discursives, I don't think we need that. > The question is, if we find that Dagur indeed lacks this linguistic > feature that I for one thought very strange, Yes, emphasising things in order to deemphasise them, as a lojbo se bangu (I've forgotten who) put it. > do we remove it from the list of proposed extensions for the next > Lojban release, or having thought of it, do we leave it there in case > somebody does find a use for it? I vote for the first. If we decide to leave it for a certain time and kill it if no one uses it, I predict that someone will go to great lengths to find a context where it kind of seems usable, and will use it just for the hell of it. Either that, or I know nothing about human nature. Ivan