Message-Id: <199502090520.AA23732@nfs1.digex.net> From: ucleaar Date: Thu Feb 9 00:20:37 1995 Subject: Re: jorne X-From-Space-Date: Thu Feb 9 00:20:37 1995 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu 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