Date: Thu, 09 Feb 1995 00:24:36 +0000
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject: Re: jorne
In-reply-to: (Your message of Tue, 07 Feb 95 11:04:00 EST.)
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Jorge:
> Supposedly, in theory, if someone knows the meaning of a gismu,
> they don't need to check anything. Knowing the gismu means knowing
> what relationship it describes, even if not all arguments are
> stated. In practice, I agree that that is not how things work, mainly
> because probably nobody is thinking in Lojban. Also, fat gismu
> conspire against this. (I find suspect in this regard every gismu
> with more than three places.)
 
I supported ziho as a desperate and very probably ineffectual remedy
to the two problems you mention.
 
> I have trouble imagining what {dunda} means if you
> ziho out one of its places, for example.
 
I can't think what {dunda fe ziho} or {dunda fi ziho} wd mean, but
{dunda fa ziho} wd surely mean "receive". That actually seems to me
like a relatively reasonable use of ziho.
 
As another example, say there was a selbri
  x1 is brother of x2
such that if x1 is brother of x2 then x1 is male and x1 is sibling of
x2. In this case, {ro brother be fe ziho} ought just to refer to
all males. All pretty useless and counterintuitive.
 
> >   lanci
> >   x1 is a flag/banner/standard of/symbolizing x2 with
> >   pattern(s) x3 on material x4
> > I set aside virtual flags made of no material, or
> > transparent flags with no pattern, which are improbable
> > circumstances.
> I find the material x4 the most questionable place there, it
> doesn't seem all that relevant, and I'm sure there must be a BAI
> for that. Similarly, I am much more likely to say {tavla bau
> la lojban} than {tavla fo la lojban} simply because I know
> {bau} much better than the whole place structure of {tavla}.
> Even if I vaguely remember that {tavla} has a language place,
> I would never be sure that it is the x4.
 
I feel exactly the same. In general, learning would be easier if
all those recurring places like "of material", "by standard",
"of species" and so on were lopped off & replaced by BAI modals.
 
> > It is the x2 that bugs me. I don't think
> > it shouldn't be there, for by it we may speak of the
> > flag of France, and so on. But it irks me that a flag
> > that isn't the flag of anything isn't a lanci.
> It's a {lanci be noda}, or just a piece of cloth.
 
A flag-shaped piece of cloth flying from a flagpole is a flag.
It is indeed a {lanci be noda} and therefore not a lanci
(just as I am a {mamta be noda} and therefore not a mother).
 
----
And