From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Wed Mar 28 19:51:38 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Thu, 1 Apr 1993 00:53:06 -0500 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 3084; Thu, 01 Apr 93 00:51:45 EST Received: from CUVMB.BITNET by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 3701; Thu, 01 Apr 93 00:52:55 EST Date: Thu, 1 Apr 1993 00:51:38 -0500 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: TECH: living things are made of ... X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch Status: OR Message-ID: This translation problem has come up many times before; the best discussion came out of Nick's translation of the Adventure game. "are made of" should NOT use zbasu; the semantics here is clearly "are composed of", which is "tarmi" or possibly "marji" if I recall us changing the place structure correctly (no gismu list handy), or at the very least "ckaji". I agree with Colin that the use of "zbasu" implies a "maker", and that is why I tend to agree with Nick that "ne'e" is primarily of pedagogical use. However the original arguments that led to "ne'e" were the ones that Bruce Gilson raised (and which were incorporated in his short-lived Voksigid conlang effort), which is that the use of "ne'e" did indeed give a "different selbri" without the indicated place. I didn't like it then, and don't like it now, but presumed that Nick had been 'converted' by that discussion which is why he had used it in his place structure paper. Since Nick has done the bulk of the place structure work that will appear in the first dictionary, I am bound by necessity to defer to him on the use of a cmavo in analyzing place structures. If, as he says, the usage is only pedagogical, probably the better approach is to NOT add the cmavo to the language and NOT use it in the place structure paper, but instead use a different pedagogical method to explain what is happening when you eliminate a place. My argument in suggesting it be assigned a cmavo was merely that if it was going to be codified into the language by appearing in one of the defining papers (even if only pedagogical), it should be assigned a real cmavo, and not something from experimental cmavo space, since by definition it is "real" and not "experimental" if it is used as an example (i.e. there will be people that will emulate any usage that appears in the papers). Thus I withdraw my support for this cmavo, and suggest that the rewriting of that section of the paper is a better approach. lojbab