From LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:44:39 2010 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 9 Jun 1993 08:30:29 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 5373; Wed, 09 Jun 93 04:26:48 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 0457; Wed, 09 Jun 93 04:28:11 EDT Date: Wed, 9 Jun 1993 09:26:37 +0100 Reply-To: Colin Fine Sender: Lojban list From: Colin Fine Subject: Re: 'Observative' - terminology To: Erik Rauch X-Status: Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Wed Jun 9 10:26:37 1993 X-From-Space-Address: @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Message-ID: 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. 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. ======================================================================== There's a monkey on my shoulder | Colin Fine and it's telling me lies | Dept of Computing Just to stop me ever seeing | University of Bradford what's in front of my eyes. | Bradford, W. Yorks, England It tells me what the world is like| BD7 1DP and how I ought to be, | Tel: 0274 733680 (h), 383915 (w) And just what's gonna happen | c.j.fine@bradford.ac.uk if I ever dare be me. | 'Morris dancers do it with bells on' ========================================================================