Message-Id: <199310062254.AA03281@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Wed, 6 Oct 1993 23:50:33 +0100
Reply-To: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: Lean Lujvo and fat gismu
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
In-Reply-To:  (Your message of Wed, 06 Oct 93 16:49:00 EDT.)
Status: RO

Having long been absent from the discussion on this list,
no doubt away on a honeymoon of record-breaking duration,
Art Protin says:
> And just said:
> > In a previous klama/cliva debate the conclusion was that klama
> > entails that there be a destination, whereas cliva doesn't. So
> > if something just keeps on going (e.g. a satellite sent into
> > space) then it is clivaing but is not necessarily klamaing.
> > Klama *does* require that there be a destination. Since there
> > usually is a souce and destination to motion, even if they're
> > irrelevant, klama will almost always be adequate for expressing
> > any notion of going (and cliva and litru don't really deserve
> > gismu status, and could just have well have been rarely used
> > lujvo - but so what).
>
> This has been my view all along.  I am total unconvinced that
> the distinction between klama, cliva, and litru isn't just the
> result of cultural bias and/or an excessive-compulsive view
> of the role of places in the language.

Am I misunderstood? I think there is a genuine, semantically
significant distinction between klama and litru, & the underlying
principle of place structures seems to me indispensable: I
don't think the language word work if cliva were necessarily
synonymous with klama with an empty destination place.

But I also think the klama/cliva/litru trio wastes gismus:
the rare cases where cliva or litru are needed (infinite
motions) could be handled by zihoing off some places
from klama. But, as I said, so what: people will just have
to learn a couple of almost entirely unnecessary & useless gismu;
it's not really a problem.

And.