From jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU  Sat Mar  6 22:45:15 2010
Date:         Sat, 13 May 1995 13:24:31 EDT
From: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Subject:      Re: {prenu} vs. {remna}
To: Bob LeChevalier <lojbab@access.digex.net>
X-From-Space-Date: Sat May 13 13:22:40 1995
X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu
Message-ID: <eig3cxIXZjM.A.Y4E.7t0kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org>

> Reading further in the Martin Luther King speech (which is going much
> more easily now), I came across
>
>         ro remna cu jikydunli co'a lenu ri se zbasu
>
> (as a translation of part of the U.S. Declaration of independence: "All
> men are created equal".)

As an aside, I understand the Lojban sentence to mean that they start
being equal from the time they are made, i.e., {co'a} is a tense of
{jikydunli}, a paraphrase would be:  {ro remna co'a jikydunli ca le nu
ri se zbasu}.

I agree with that interpretation, but the one consistent with the usual
interpretation of {ba'o} (which I don't like) would be that they are
equal at the start of their making, i.e.  {ro remna cu jikydunli ca le
nu ri co'a se zbasu}.

That obviously is not the intended sense, so I'm glad that at least
{co'a} doesn't seem to be contaminated by the exotic use of {ba'o} as
tcita.

(I also used it like this in the {gunse joi lorxu} translation and
nobody complained, so I guess it's just {ba'o} and perhaps {pu'o} that
are deviant, and not the whole selma'o.)


> Now, from the gismu list, it seems to me that
> the distinction between {prenu} and {remna} is like the English
> distinction between person and human animal.  Since the above bridi is
> specifically about the social aspects of humans rather than the physical,
> it seems to me that {prenu} would be more appropriate.  Indeed, there are
> certain {lo remna} that don't qualify as {lo prenu} in this sense; for a
> less explosive example than the slaves the framers probably intended,
> consider young children, the psychotically insane, or the severely
> retarded.

I think {remna} is right, especially considering that the equality is
supposed to be a natural property (a self evident truth), and not a
right bestowed by the state, so it is a characteristic of humans.

> I'm not sure if this analysis of the difference between {prenu} and
> {remna} really holds up, though.  Anyone who has a pet will tell you that
> animals can have personalities and thus might qualify as {lo prenu}.

Yes, they do. {prenu} refers to sentient individuals with volition.
If the cat has volition, then it can be said to be a prenu. A {prenu} is
an individual, which may happen to belong to the human race, while a
{remna} is a member of the human race.


> co'o mi'e. dilyn. ZRstan.
>
> (I'm not sure how best to transliterate my last name.  The second vowel,
> which is close to the vowel in "John", seems to normally be
> transliterated {a} rather than {o}, though it's not really either.

I would transliterate "John" as {djon}, but then I'm a native speaker
of Spanish. You can choose the tranliteration that you like the most,
and hopefully others will call you that.

> Lojban doesn't have a (unvoiced) dental affricate, English "th"
> (sometimes); earlier, I used {t} to preserve the dental quality, but
> perhaps it's better to keep it an affricate with {z}, as in the
> stereotypical French pronunciation of "the".  Opinions?)

Do you dislike {turston} too much? It's much easier to pronounce
(for me) and you get rid of the where goes the stress problem :)

co'o mi'e xorxes jambi,as