X-Digest-Num: 360 Message-ID: <44114.360.1970.959273826@eGroups.com> Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 05:54:05 -0500 From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" Subject: Re: And the Eskimos have 100 words for 'Snow Cone' X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 1970 Content-Length: 2364 Lines: 59 At 02:31 PM 02/10/2000 -0800, Jorge Llambias wrote: >From: "Jorge Llambias" > >la lojbab cusku di'e > > >Interesting. But on the other hand, if someone asked me to define "sanmi" > >in Lojban - my first inclination would be to say "nu citka" ("event of > >eating") so that the matchup is not as bad as you make it sound. > >That has to be malglico! And malrusko and malspano, from the sound of it > Surely le sanmi can't be both >le nu citka and le se citka. If it is something that can be >eaten it can't be an event of eating. (mi citka le sanmi - >mi citka le nu citka ?!) > >(Unless you were using Loglan "nu" = Lojban "se". This is >probably the most confusing cmavo of all for anyone trying to >learn both languages, competing for that position with "na", >which means "ca" in Loglan.) I don't have this problem with TLI Loglan any more, mostly because I so seldom try to read it. When I do have problems it is in the reading of TLI material. (Nora on the other hand tends to have more crossover.) >In Spanish the word "comida" can mean "food" or "meal". >It means "food" when used as a mass noun and "meal" as >a count noun. When it means "meal" it can also have both >senses of the English "meal", the event and the actual >food. But does Lojban {sanmi} have this dual meaning too? I agree with you that it shouldn't - I think it is actually a blend of the two in English (and perhaps the other languages and Lojban as well?), which seems to mean one or the other through metonymy. The "se citka" meaning is the portion of food eaten at a meal, and the "nu citka" meaning is really "nu citka pa sanmi". But the meal is more than just the food - it is the state of mind that allows us to associate that food with the event of eating it, and possibly some other social interactions. After all, when we talk "during dinner" we are clearly focusing on the meal as an event. Deciding which it means for Lojban is something I cannot do myself. I suspect that it will take great care to avoid rampant metonymy, whatever we decide. lojbab lojbab ---- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org