Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 11:31:31 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199801061631.LAA28458@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Rob Zook Sender: Lojban list From: Rob Zook Subject: Re: Knowledge & Belief X-To: LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: <199801061539.HAA20838@gateway.informix.com> X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1733 X-From-Space-Date: Tue Jan 6 11:31:32 1998 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU At 05:35 PM 1/3/98 +0000, Colin Fine wrote: >vecu'u le notci po'u <883777789.0919010.0@listserv.cuny.edu> la Rob Zook > cu cusku di'e >>a descriptive tanru "le porpi fau tavla" "the break in the event of=20 >>talking". I also thought that with a tanru like "porpi tavla" that the >>tanru would take the place structure of tavla since that's what's being >>modified, so no pieces just unspecified talkers and subject. >> > >However, it cannot grammatically occur between two brivla. > >There is however a problem with the meaning, as somebody else pointed >out: porpi means 'smash into pieces', which is not obviously appropriate >to talk (it could be to 'talker', but that seems unlikely to be your >meaning zo'o). Well, in my experience interuptions can have that kind of effect on the conversation. Someone interjects their own point of view and fragments a conversation into even more threads, so metaphorically one can think of that as breaking into pieces. >My stab at interrupt would be something like setca tavla 'insert talk', >but there may be a better candidate. I just was trying to get a close match to "break into the conversation" which was what I literally meant. "Insert" seems more more emotionally neutral than "break". Interupting has more emotional nuance to me since it's usually considered a little rude. So I wanted to say something like, "excuse me for interupting/butting in/sticking my nose in". So how would I say something like that? What would you use to build a tanru meaning "to break into a conversation"? Rob Z. -------------------------------------------------------- Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx