From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Wed May 24 13:59:10 1995 Date: Wed, 24 May 1995 10:56:25 -0400 From: "Dylan P. Thurston" Subject: predicates of motion - late response To: Bob LeChevalier Message-ID: <6cRknqTE_t.A.A7E.-t0kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org> ki'e. lojbab le di'e danfu mi cusku di'e > >Or take the motion verbs expressing a manner of movement. I count the > >following: > > > >cadzu x1 walks/strides/paces on surface x2 using limbs x3 > >bajra x1 runs on surface x2 using limbs x3 with gait x4 > >stapa x1 steps/treads on/in surface x2 using limbs x3 > >vofli x1 flies [in air/atmosphere] using lifting/propulsion means x2 > >cpare x1 climbs/clambers/creeps/crawls on surface x2 in direction x3 using > > x4 [limbs/tools] > >farlu x1 falls/drops to x2 from x3 in gravity well/frame of reference x4 > >sfubu x1 dives/swoops [manner of controlled falling] to x2 from x3 > >plipe x1 (agent/object) leaps/jumps/springs/bounds to x2 from x3 reaching > > height x4 propelled by x5 > > > >IMHO, these are similar predicates and should have similar place > >structure. But: only some include the medium; {cpare}, uniquely among > >all motion verbs, includes a direction; {bajra} but not {cadzu} includes > >a gait; and {farlu}, {sfubu}, and {plipe} but not the rest include > >source & destination. As a result, it's very difficult to talk about > >someone falling down an infinite pit (consider, for instance, Alice > >falling down the rabbit-hole in "Alice in Wonderland"[1]). la lojbab cusku di'e > At one point they all (?) were identical to klama in place structure. > But the lean gismu people wanted redundancy eliminated. So now you > bajra klama or cadzu klama. Indeed, I think there are remnants of the > old place structure in some examples in the draft textbook. > > In other cases, places were added to account for cultural or > metaphorical uses of words. You can walk on your hands - so we added > thhe specific limbs. Yes, absolutely. I didn't mean to argue for identical place structures, just some justification for the differences. The limbs I can see being very handy. (See below...) > The gaits of 4-legged animal motions apply to > various degrees of running (you could say that walking is a specific > kind of running gait in a 4-legged animal). Questions here: {xu le nu cadzu be fi remei cu nu bajra mu'i ma} (Is walking a kind of running gait for 2-legged animals, too, and why?) What's an example of a gait (say, "gallop"), other than by le'avla? Why can't the different ways of running be handled with tanru or lujvo off {bajra}? > Direction was added to > climb when we expanded it to include clamber and crawl, which tend to be > related etymologically in many languages. I'm not sure I entirely understand your point. There's already a surface: wouldn't {cpare le loldi} naturally mean "crawl", while {cpare le sraji} ("crawl on the vertical (surface)") would be "climb"? (You could be moving horizontally, but I think those rare cases would also be covered by the English "climb", though perhaps "traverse" is more appropriate. I would recommend a spatial tense, but none seem to be appropriate. How would you say "climb across the rock face", anyway? I didn't see any appropriate spatial tense. Maybe {pinta cpare le rokci sraji}?) Is "clamber" just {juxre cpare}? > plipe was always a pain > because its English and other language equivalents tend to be used for > both jumping/springing up jumping over, and jumping from/to. the > specificity of the place structure was the best way we could think of to > clarify the core meaning and exclude those things we did not think fit > the core concept (or force them to be lujvo). I'm still a little uncertain here. Which meanings did you want to exclude with {plipe}? In any case, {plipe} is not the best example for me. The notion of "jumping" naturally includes a point of takeoff, and maybe the others. But what about {farlu}? Is there any way to say "free falling" other than {farlu befe zi'o bei zi'o}? (In the sense "supported by nothing other than air", rather than the astronautical sense, "supported by nothing at all".) Falling can be a much more protracted thing than jumping usually is. (OK, there's {se sarji le vacri}, but that seems to be somewhat different.) (I get the impression that you're reluctant to make changes to the place structures at this point, but if I succeed in making a very convincing argument it might happen. Is this right?) > MANY gismu place structure decisions were made ad hoc based on specific > pragmatic usage considerations, and NOT on the basis of creating some > ideal mapping of concept space. Indeed I think we have explicitly > REJECTED the idea that the gismu should be considered anything like an > ideal - that our vocabulary should be in some way a philosopher's > language combining pure essences to analytically cover all concepts. > Many conlangs have tried for the latter, and we didn't want to. Absolutely agreed. Language is a very pragmatic affair. (And, even if we wanted to do this, we (i.e., humans) don't have a clear enough understanding of the semantics involved.) > >[1] Yes, there is a source and destination, but they're not relevant to > >Alice in the middle of the fall; if I recall correctly, she wonders at > >one point whether the fall will ever end. That would currently have to > >be translated as wondering whether a terbridi has a value (!). > clearly la alis. za'o zo'o farlu ma > > Whether a place is relevant is less important than whether it exists. > You could always use lo cimni. I suppose, though I don't really like it. > The tougher question is xu lo mluni cu farlu ma ma. And the answer with the current place structure has to be {na go'i}. > lojbab mu'o mi'e. dilyn.