Date:         Fri, 21 Aug 1998 18:40:05 +0000
Reply-To:     george.foot@merton.oxford.ac.uk
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From:         George Foot <george.foot@MERTON.OXFORD.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: A First Words in Lojban
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On 21 Aug 98 at 1:41, Logical Language Group wrote:

> >> Catapultam habeo.  Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum
> >> immane mittam.
> >
> >    mi ponse le rokci renro .i ko dunda fi mi le do jdini .ija mi ca
> >    renro lo bardi rokci le do stedu
>
> I think you want .ijonai (exclusive OR) rather than .ija, since you don't
> plan to throw the rock if the money is tranferred.  I might also use
> "isemu'i" betweeen the first two sentences, because the catapult ownership is
> a motive for the money transfer.

Which would bind more closely, "isemu'i" or the ijek?  If the former
then it wouldn't make sense, because it would be possible that the
first bridi is false and the last bridi is true, i.e. I don't have a
catapult, so its causing/not causing you to give me money is
irrelevant; yet I throw a rock at you.

On the other hand, if the ijek binds closest then I think the
implication is that my possession of a catapult would be causing me
to throw rocks at you if you don't give me money.

> >"rokci renro" here means "rock thrower".  "seldanti" might be a
> >better word for catapult but it's not specific; it would just mean
> >some kind of launching weapon.  Perhaps "rokci seldanti". "ro'ire'o"
> >would be a nice lujvo for catapult -- it sounds nice. :)  I don't
> >think you're meant to create lujvo casually though.
>
> Actually, that is PRECISELY what I what people to do when they feel up to it.
> And I would not expect them to bother with place strcture determination in
> such an ad hoc coinage, but rather rely on what seems obvious for the context.
> We can always go bakcand analyze thingslater ifthe word seemsto catch on, and
> natural usage overridesthe lujvo-making place conventions. I think your
 coinage
> is just fine, but other may do better: rock-throw-apparatus comes to mind
> as a plausible metaphor.

Oh, so it's fine to create lujvo so long as we don't try to pin them
down to speciic meanings too much.  My lujvo was wrong anyway -- I
think it needed a hyphen: "ro'inre'o"

--
george.foot@merton.oxford.ac.uk