Date: Wed, 13 Sep 1995 19:52:21 -0400 (EDT)
From: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Subject: Re: bridi conn & Nicholas tapes
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Reply-to: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
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And:
> I know this must have been debated to death long ago, but why was it
> not felt that there should be a way? Surely it can't be too difficult
> syntactically to have an afterthought bridi connective. I'm gobsmacked
> that there is no way. After all, logically all connectives are really
> bridi connectives.
 
Yes, and besides, as a practical matter, the need has come up more
than once. I suppose it would require a new cmavo, because using {gi}
probably would cause insurmountable parsing problems. If it doesn't,
then {gi} would be ideal for the job: {ko'a broda i ko'e brode}
would go to {le nu ko'a broda gi ko'e brode}. And the same thing with
a connective: {ko'a broda ije ko'e brode} would go to {le nu ko'a
broda gije ko'e brode}.
 
> > > While listening to the Nicholas Tapes (just got to Goran singing the
> > > Lojbo-Croat anthem amidst a drunken revel),
> > Can I get a copy? I'll pay for shipping and handling.
>
> I have them only on loan, &, having myself been involved in research
> projects involving recorded conversations, I know that the recordees
> can sometimes be rather touchy about distribution. So I leave it to
> Nick.
 
Is Nick emailable these days?
 
> It is fascinating hearing different spoken Lojban styles. Nik begins
> every utterance with {i}, uses {si si si si} and then races ahead
> a mile a minute while you're trying to remember what the fifth word
> back was, does lujvo on the fly, and has a stumbling-conversational
> fluency in Lojban roughly equivalent (but certainly not inferior)
> to what I had in French after 5 hours a week for 5 years of high school
> - that is, one can converse, but with great intellectual effort and
> hesitation.
 
That sounds like the conversations that Chris, Nora, Lojbab and I had
during Logfest. We were able to converse almost without switching to
English, but with much hesitation and effort.
 
> Colin is not as fluent, but could understand Nick, which
> tells you how brainy Colin must be. Ivan speaks faster than Nick, if
> that is possible (but he only spoke a bit, and he may have been reading
> aloud). Goran has the clearest diction (or at least his spoken Lojban
> sounds like I'd imagined it would sound before I heard any).
 
According to some, people from Goran's part of the world have the
best Esperanto accents, and since Lojban and Esperanto have practically
the same phonemes, it sounds reasonable that Goran would have a good
Lojban pronounciation. Perhaps we should decree Goran's pronounciation
to be the norm for Lojban :).
 
> (When Nick
> phoned me up when he arrived the first thing he said was {i vizykla}
> and I thought he was speaking Klingon - the last syllable was [klah],
> and I wasn't expecting {i}, and hands up everyone who doesn't know
> the rafsi for {vi}. And I've already told you how with my English
> ears I hear his voiceless stops as voiced.)
>
> I heard no complete intonation patterns over utterances much longer
> than {na gohi} - there isn't that degree of fluency yet.
 
Something that I noticed that lojbab and I do different is in the stress
of strings of cmavo. For example, in saying {le nu}, lojbab seemed to
stress {le}, and I always stress {nu}. I don't remember noticing what
Chris did, so he might do the same I do. Or in {remei}, lojbab stresses
{re} and I stress {mei}. On the other hand, we probably both stress
{re} in {re le broda}. Can you tell how Nick et al handle this from
the tapes?
 
> It also struck me that there's a need for **echo** wh-questions, for
> when one can't hear a word or doesn't know it. {kie} is too unspecific
> and {ma} & co. do a different job. So, if anyone's listening, how
> about a cmavo like {kau} that marks a {ma}-word as an echo question?
 
Well, there's {ke'o}, but that's a COI:
 
-- mi klama le zarci
-- i ke'o do'u do klama ma?
 
Or how about {maki'a}?
 
-- i do klama maki'a?
 
Jorge