Message-Id: <199510131937.PAA01209@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Fri, 13 Oct 1995 14:56:26 -0400
Reply-To: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      imperatives
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

>> They may even be uncommon (not sure about that)
>> in English, but in other languages they are quite often.
>
>Yes, I think that the reason why Lojban only has {ko} for the imperative
>is that in English only the second person imperative is clearly marked.
>I don't think it is a big problem because of the attitudinals.  {ko} is
>even redundant.

The reason why Lojban has "ko" cannot be understood without history.
Back in 1979, in The Loglanist Volume 3, there was a debate over JCB's
Loglan design, which is that the bridi without x1 (i.e. what we now use
as the observative) is the imperative. i.e.  "klama" would be the
imperative "Go!"  At that point someone raised the issue of the
observative, using the example "Fire!" to mean that you see flames
rather than you are about to enter battle.  JCB chose to express the
observative as a bare sumti, against significant opposition, and his
reasons amounted to little more than a lack of desire to change.

When we redesigned the language, I suggested a marker for imperative,
and when we fiddled around trying to decide what grammar it should have,
decided that it could very well be a pro-sumti.

Why did JCB not allow for other-than-2nd-person imperatives?  Not sure,
but it wasn't pure Anglocentrism - JCB lived several years in Europe, mostly
in Minorca I think which speaks a Spanish dialect.

Maybe I can find the old debate and see if it came up.

lojbab