Return-Path: <@SEGATE.SUNET.SE:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET> Received: from SEGATE.SUNET.SE by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0sAKtW-0009acC; Sat, 13 May 95 20:22 EET DST Message-Id: Received: from segate.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v0.1a) with SMTP id 577FE141 ; Sat, 13 May 1995 19:22:24 +0100 Date: Sat, 13 May 1995 13:24:31 EDT Reply-To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU Sender: Lojban list From: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU Subject: Re: {prenu} vs. {remna} X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 3132 Lines: 71 > 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