From LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:55:10 2010 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Fri, 26 Mar 1993 13:02:47 -0500 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 6409; Fri, 26 Mar 93 13:01:30 EST Received: from CUVMB.BITNET by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 7939; Fri, 26 Mar 93 13:02:25 EST Date: Fri, 26 Mar 1993 11:30:39 -0500 Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Re: TECH: grammar updates X-To: Lojban List To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: <9303261252.AA14096@relay1.UU.NET> from "C.J.Fine@bradford.ac.uk" at Mar 26, 93 12:01:46 pm Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Fri Mar 26 06:30:39 1993 X-From-Space-Address: @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Message-ID: <3XCD2fseJBC.A.k9.O30kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org> la kolin. cusku di'e > As I understand it, the SE that precedes BAI is not the same as other SE > anyway. As you say, BAI are 1-place, and the relationship between BAI and > SE BAI is: > > if > do'e represents fi'o broda > then > se do'e represents fi'o se broda > te do'e represents fi'o te broda Correct. > > We still have the (pure) forethought connectives like "semaugi...gi" and the > > mixed logical/modal afterthought connectives like ".esemaubo", and these > > should suffice for the cases, if any there be, where such constructs must > > exist. It will always be rather indeterminate, however, what is to go into > > the second position of such connectives, because of the inherent one-place > > nature of BAIs. > > > I think it is a mistake to think of these as connectives. I think it is more > productive to think of them as connectives plus tcita on the second connectand. > This is easy to see for sentence connectives: > > .ijeseri'abo co'e = .ije (bo) seri'a co'e > just as > .ijebabo co'e = .ije(bo) ba co'e I'm fairly sure this is wrong, because I know that BAI and tenses are not parallel, but I don't have a firm grasp on what's wrong with it, for two reasons: 1) I haven't yet written the paper on place structures, 2) I slept very badly last night. > so I suggest > .ijesemaubo co'e = .ije(bo) semau co'e (whatever that means) > and > xy. .esemaubo .y'y = nu'i xy. nu'u .e semau .y'y > > Thus the BAI remains 1-place. Your account also fails to explain the "BAI gi ... gi" construction, which works well for tenses (which do have an implicit 2nd place, viz. the space-time origin), but may be very shaky for BAIs. > > The Nick/Lojbab experimental cmavo "xo'e", which eradicates a place > > (so that "da klama xo'e xo'e de di" means the same as "da litru de di"), > > has been assigned the cmavo "ne'e" and placed in selma'o KOhA. > > I'm dubious that this is either necessary (has anybody ever used it) or > a good idea, but I don't think it does any harm. This pops up for me when I want to say something universal, but where the natural gismu seems to want an agent: "Living things are made from cells [by whom?]", "Set A can be divided into sets B and [jo'u] C [who does the dividing?]", etc. English gets away with a passive here, because the passive in English does not commit you to the existence of an agent; not so SE conversion, which does not eliminate any places. Without this gimmick, the only way to eliminate places is to make a lujvo and just say "This obnoxious place doesn't exist in this lujvo". But (as Nick rightly points out) there then needs to be a way to re-express the meaning of the lujvo in terms of a tanru. -- John Cowan cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban.