From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Mon Aug 16 11:30:44 1993 Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Mon, 16 Aug 1993 10:51:30 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Mon, 16 Aug 1993 10:51:26 -0400 Message-Id: <199308161451.AA03538@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 8853; Mon, 16 Aug 93 10:50:11 EDT Received: from YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@YALEVM) by YALEVM.CIS.YALE.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 1624; Mon, 16 Aug 1993 10:50:11 -0400 Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 10:30:44 +0100 Reply-To: Colin Fine Sender: Lojban list From: Colin Fine Subject: Re: Rob's signoff To: Erik Rauch Status: RO X-Status: Rob expostulates: ++++++++++++> I also wanted to be able to say dot-se'isni.. pi'e is within the PA group, but I think it is definitely not a number in the sense that we mean english (whereas a decimal point can be thought oof as a number (but not the slash/dash in a date)). What I really wanted to say was 'period', or 78th ascii character, or something like that but lojban, like non-computer english is lacking in things of this nature. >++++++++++ As so often, I've pointed out an error without suggesting a solution. u'u ro'a As you say, pi'e is in selma'o PA and thus (in this context) acts as a quantifier. There is a way of saying 'dot' in Lojban - you need something in selma'o BY, and you have the word 'bu' which converts anything to a lerfu (something functional equivalent to a BY). I think the quasi-official lojban for a dot is "denpa bu" (pause lerfu) - I saw a draft of a lerfu paper last year. Unfortunately, this still won't do in your context, because lerfu can be used either as (pro-)sumti or (after vei) in MEX. I don't think there is a way to do it grammatically, and you're going to have to use error quotes (lo'u). In which case, what's inside doesn't have to be valid lojban, and you can use pi'e if you like - I still wouldn't recommend it, because pi'e does not have a standard character representation. I suggest .i lo'u denpa bu se'isnu le'u tcika le datnyvro be dei ni'o datnyvro???? Data door (between something and something in some structure?) ni'o .i le raktu be do cu jibre mi Should be 'jibri' co'omi'e kolin