From LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:49:00 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI Received: (qmail 4622 invoked from network); 15 Apr 1997 07:55:26 -0000 Received: from segate.sunet.se (192.36.125.6) by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with SMTP; 15 Apr 1997 07:55:26 -0000 Received: from segate.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <9.9B50C6A1@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Tue, 15 Apr 1997 9:55:26 +0100 Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 22:09:58 -0300 Reply-To: "Jorge J. Llambias" Sender: Lojban list From: "Jorge J. Llambias" Subject: Re: ma'oste X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 1854 Lines: 52 Message-ID: <6YIa-TlslIO.A.aHH.cx0kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org> la esteban di'e cusku > I think one way would be to say > > ma goi ko'a djica lenu mi benji ti ko'a > > Does anyone know a shorter way (for I could think of *longer* ways!) ;-) One possibility: ma djica le nu ri ti mi te benji > ======================================= > A note for recreational lojban-grammar: > > 'ma' questions are supposed to be answered with a sumti; and in any sentence > 'di'e' refers to the next utterance; then there could be a (funny) compact > way to express (2): > > ma djica lenu mi benji ti di'e > > What do you think? I don't think it works. Suppose I respond {mi}. Then I would be saying that I want you to send it to the utterance "mi", not to me. Unfortunately di'u, di'e et al don't refer to the referent of the utterance but to the utterance itself. (Unfortunate because the other meaning is much more frequently needed.) Perhaps you could say: ma djica le nu mi benji ti la'e di'e but even that is not really optimal, because a question can always be answered with a full sentence, e.g. {mi go'i}. Also, even if you just answer with a single sumti {mi}, I think {di'e} is the _sentence_ {mi}, equivalent to the sentence {mi co'e}, and not just the sumti {mi}. > >That brings up an interesting point: While you're correct that {ma} > >was probably intended here, would {mo} be a valid question anyway, > >where it is asking not for a whole selbri, but for part of a tanru? > >In other words, could I ask "mo zdani do" for "what kind of house > >do you live in" or "ta blanu mo" for "what is that blue thing"? > > I think you're right; and if this is not ungrammatical, it would give an > elegant, compact form of making precisely those questions you are putting as > example. It is indeed grammatical. Any member of selma'o GOhA, e.g. {mo}, has the same grammar as a brivla. co'o mi'e xorxes