From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Mon Nov 27 02:15:40 1995 Received: from VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (vms.dc.lsoft.com [205.186.43.2]) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) with ESMTP id CAA21517 for ; Mon, 27 Nov 1995 02:15:27 -0500 Message-Id: <199511270715.CAA21517@locke.ccil.org> Received: from PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM (205.186.43.4) by VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.0a) with SMTP id 4DCB9136 ; Mon, 27 Nov 1995 3:02:52 -0400 Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 06:38:52 +0000 Reply-To: ucleaar Sender: Lojban list From: ucleaar Subject: Re: self-descriptions? To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu Status: OR Chris: > >[Lojbab: > >> Fine, use brivla. Tenses apply to whole bridi. > >This is a pretty ugly solution: {citno bao kei bao ralju}, or > >{citno me kei bao ralju}, or {citno zio kei bao ralju} - they're > >all ugly. Semantically, ZAhO works quasitanruishly, like NAhE, > >so I think it oughtn't to apply to whole bridi.] > Are those even grammatical? As far as I know they are. > I think he meant something like {selfanmo citno ke ralju} and > {selfanmo ke citno ralju}. That's irksome, because every ZAhO must be duplicated by a lujvo, just because ZAhO has the wrong syntax. And moreover, these examples would give true tanru, whereas ZAhO, like NAhE, are more rule governed semantically than true tanru. > Or you ought to be able to use zei: {citno ba'o zei ralju} or {ba'o zei > citno ralju}. The second is "president who is no longer young". How to get "person who is no longer a young president"? > >> Fi-fa-fu-Lojban is very obfuscating, especially in > >> combination with jaifau-Lojban. > >Is there a clear reason for that, apart from its unfamiliarity? > Yes. fi-fai-fo-fum are very much like cases, but the fo-ative case > doesn't have a generic meaning outside a particular selbri. Maybe the > fa-ative tends to be nominative and the feative is accusative, but by > the time you're at the 3rd or 4th place the meaning is completely > context-dependent. But why is this harder than usage without FA (i.e. in normal x1, x2, x3 ... order)? > >Well by that reasoning we ought to have a NU for every sumti. > >If le nu broda koa koe kei = le jaifau broda be koa bei koe, > >then let le fa'a'a broda koa koe kei = le broda be koa bei koe > > le fe'e'e koa broda zoe koe kei = le se broda be koa bei koe > >etc. That's actually a good idea. But I don't like the event > >argument being singled out for special treatment. > That is an interesting idea. I haven't grokked your criticism of NU before > now. That's actually my criticism of {nu} in particular. Against NU in general, as currently constituted, I levelled a range of other criticisms. --- And