From lojbab@lojban.org Tue Sep 25 10:20:08 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2_2); 25 Sep 2001 17:19:28 -0000 Received: (qmail 38252 invoked from network); 25 Sep 2001 17:05:36 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by 10.1.1.223 with QMQP; 25 Sep 2001 17:05:36 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO stmpy-2.cais.net) (205.252.14.72) by mta3 with SMTP; 25 Sep 2001 17:06:16 -0000 Received: from bob.lojban.org (143.dynamic.cais.com [207.226.56.143]) by stmpy-2.cais.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f8PH6Em73990 for ; Tue, 25 Sep 2001 13:06:14 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010925124343.00d62a40@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: vir1036@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 13:03:05 -0400 To: lojban Subject: RE: [lojban] Dumb answers to good questions In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 11032 At 02:51 PM 9/25/01 +0100, And Rosta wrote: >#Be that as it may, I find in looking at ancient postings that this came up >#once before, from you, and Cowan opined that ba'e was the focus >#marker. Much earlier, back in 1991, we apparently said that focus was >#conveyed primarily by position, with primary focus on the beginning of the >#sentence. > >It would help if you could include pointers to the messages in question, >so we can see whether we concur with your reading of them. The only >focus marker I remember is "kau". I just plugged "focus" into Jay's archive searcher. The following were on the first 2 pages of 10 of the 167 references: http://balance.wiw.org/~jkominek/lojban/9110/msg00027.html http://balance.wiw.org/~jkominek/lojban/9712/msg00036.html Also on the first page: http://balance.wiw.org/~jkominek/lojban/9710/msg00228.html deals with "even" as a focus marker in English, which has come up multiple times as well, probably not using the word "focus" every time. Unfortunately "even" may be too common a word to do a search on. It gives 3012 hits, though the couple listed first have "even" in the subject and may indeed be about that issue. > >#The logical way of marking focus, if focus is an important feature of >#>language, >#>#is to ... *mark it*. >#> >#>You can't mark it if you don't know what it is -- the marking would be >#>meaningless. ># >#I don't understand this statement. If you don't know what the focus is, >#then how can you even refer to it? > >I mean that if you don't know what Focus is then you can't mark it. >It's no good saying "Let this cmavo signify Blah" is you are unable to >offer any sort of adequate defintition or characterization of Blah. Actually, it is a tried and true Loglan and Lojban design technique %^) Look at kau, tu'a, and all manner of other things (and ce'u, which was not my addition but was clearly added before it was characterized). I've had pretty good instincts as to when something is needed in the language, even if I cannot formally define it. And I don't mind being wrong in my initial characterization if something turns out to be more useful ("useful" being key here, because however we may baseline the design, we are not baselining usage). >Words -- and linguistic forms in general -- are pairings of sound and >meaning. A sound alone is not a word. Until you add the meaning, then, >you don't have a proper word. %^) We must have a lot of improper words in Lojban. I'm glad we seem to be able to communicate using them in spite of this. 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