From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Thu Jun 10 05:54:44 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Thu, 10 Jun 1993 05:54:44 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1727; Thu, 10 Jun 93 05:53:40 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 8777; Thu, 10 Jun 93 05:55:04 EDT Date: Thu, 10 Jun 1993 10:53:37 BST Reply-To: I.Alexander.bra0125@oasis.icl.co.uk Sender: Lojban list From: Iain Alexander Subject: Re: 'Observative' - terminology X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch X-Status: Status: OR Message-ID: Colin replies to Lojbab on one of the uses of the (syntactic) observative: ------------------------- > > - it is one of a few sentences where I have picked up net.lojban.usage, though > > I think it malglico. The most obvious of these is "cumki fa ..." for > > "it is possible that ...". I'm not sure why people including myself seem to fe > > feel comfortable with such reversal, especiallly since we do it only with > > certain words that do so in English - in general I feel very UN-comfortable > > when using a form that is recognizably patterned after an Englishj usage, but > > where I can't say why I am doing it in a non-typical Lojban manner. It is > > perhaps possible that what we want is to make the Lojban word "selcumki" > > simply so we can comfortably use the Engl;ish usage as an observative, even > > though selcumki may not have a legit English translation. -------------------------- > This form is more generally motivated than a few English words, though it is > certainly not universal in the world's languages. Chomsky described a > transformation called something like Heavy Clause Shift, whereby a single > long and complex clause is moved to the end of a sentence. As far as I > know he was mainly thinking of English, but you certainly get parallel > structures in other Western European languages, at least. I think I'm basically in agreement with Colin here, although no doubt with a slightly different slant. It's back to the general stylistic point about putting the long bits last. I first remember coming across it in a computer programming context, but my instincts are that it's generally applicable to all sorts of communication-related situations, at least as a rule of thumb. > Some people have used "se cumki" rather than "cumki fa" . I (and others) > have preferred the latter. Why? > I think it is for this reason: > se cumki lenu dai > means > zo'e se cumki lenu dai > i.e. there is a fronted (hence emphasised) x2, even though it is then > omitted. This suggests a true observative: "Lo conditions [hold] under > which ...." > But > cumki falenu dai > means > cumki falenu dai kei [fe] zo'e > i.e. the x2 is not fronted. So while it is still there, it is not emphasised. > This distinction is real for me, and explains my preference. I am not sure > whether it is a legitimate interpretation or not. Another reason is that sometimes there's only an x1, which makes SE-conversion unsatisfactory. %~} fatci falenu mi remna Of course there are other occasions where something completely different is going on: fuzme lenu krati mi lenu te vecnu ro skami cabra keikei fa la djan. The one responsible for buying all our computer equipment is John. ----------------------------------------------------------- leka ka'e srera cu se ckaji ro remna mi'e .i,n.