Return-Path: <@FINHUTC.HUT.FI:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET> Received: from FINHUTC.hut.fi by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0qO9qi-000022C; Wed, 13 Jul 94 22:20 EET DST Message-Id: Received: from FINHUTC.HUT.FI by FINHUTC.hut.fi (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 5674; Wed, 13 Jul 94 22:18:41 EET Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin MAILER@SEARN) by FINHUTC.HUT.FI (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 5671; Wed, 13 Jul 1994 22:18:41 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin LISTSERV@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 2904; Wed, 13 Jul 1994 21:17:51 +0200 Date: Wed, 13 Jul 1994 13:32:36 BST Reply-To: C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK Sender: Lojban list From: Colin Fine Subject: Re: sumti categories To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 2997 Lines: 73 Jorge and I seem to be showing remarkable agreement about sumti categories now, but there are still questions: > I said: > > > One could imagine for example a classification whereby only certain terbri > > could match a particular BAI - not that I think there really are any such > > examples. > > I'm not sure I understand you. BAI normally modify (or complement) a whole > bridi (or the selbri, depending how you look at it), not the terbri. I was thinking of the sumti introduced by the BAI. I think I meant 'sumti' rather than 'terbri' - I had in mind the common case when the seltcita sumti is a selgadri, and therefore there is a relevant terbri picked out by the gadri Example: cu'u requires roughly the same as cusku (+vol?) secu'u requires the same as se cusku (+concept?) John Cowan enters the discussion > la kolin. cusku di'e > > > I agree with you about 'plant' - but I suspect that such categories will > > be useful for machine checking and parsing - but not about Mass. I > > believe that mass/set/individual is one of the fundamental grammatical > > distinctions of Lojban, and is important even if it is comparatively > > rarely specified for a terbri. > > I suspect that nothing is -mass, since any individual may be seen as a mass. > Most things are %mass, and some are +mass (notably gunme, casnu). You may be right; but even though the category will not then be useful for co-occurrence restrictions, I think it will still be useful when/if we are able to consider semantic analysis. > > > For example, I am quite unsure as to the features of 'banxa'. Consider the > > feature +/- concrete. > > Like Jorge, I believe that "banxa" is -concrete, and that the bank branch > is a "banxydinju". This may be influenced because I work for, but not in, > a bank, and in fact think of the bank branches as rather peripheral parts > of the bank-entity. John further comments on my question about na'i: > la kolin. pu cusku di'e > > > > (What about na'ipei for the linguist's "?" (doubtful grammaticality)? > > > I'm not happy about it - I suspect we need a question word on the > > > jo'a/na'i dimension) > > la xorxes. cusku di'e > > > How about {na'icu'i}? (Or {jo'acu'i}, depending which side you favour.) > > Well, it depends on what you want. "na'ipei" signals a question: To what > degree is the following sentence pragmatically unacceptable? "peina'i" > signals a related but different question: Is the following sentence > pragmatically unacceptable? > > "na'icu'i", OTOH, affirms that the sentence is midway on the scale between > acceptable and unacceptable. All these forms work equally well with "jo'a", > of course; "jo'a" and "na'i" represent the same scale, and are given > separate cmavo for reasons of compactness and avoidance of confusion > ("na'inai" looks funny as an affirmation). I find this very answer helpful and useful, except for a nagging feeling that na'i/jo'a live at a different level from the other UI (including pei). Colin Fine