From lojbab@lojban.org Wed Nov 14 14:11:14 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 14 Nov 2001 22:11:13 -0000 Received: (qmail 19017 invoked from network); 14 Nov 2001 22:11:12 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m10.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 14 Nov 2001 22:11:12 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO stmpy-2.cais.net) (205.252.14.72) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 14 Nov 2001 22:11:13 -0000 Received: from bob.lojban.org (ppp26.net-A.cais.net [205.252.61.26]) by stmpy-2.cais.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id fAEMBCo09736 for ; Wed, 14 Nov 2001 17:11:12 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20011113212037.04d7edd0@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: vir1036@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 21:37:51 -0500 To: Subject: RE: [lojban] Why is there so much irregularity in cmavo/gismu? In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 12150 At 08:38 PM 11/13/01 -0500, Craig wrote: >An explanation of why xu and .ui are different grammatically. > >Consider a hypothetical person - we'll call him Jimbob, a good generic >lojbanist name - who comes to me to ask about lojban. First he asks how to >say "I go." I tell him you say "mi klama," not wanting to get into SE and FA >yet. But, lover of attitudinals that I am, I mention that you show your >feelings with a word that you can put anywhere in the sentence. For >instance, "I go :-)" is "mi klama .ui" He asks how to make commands. I tell >him you use a different form of the word for 'you'. He asks how to ask >yes/no questions. I say you stick 'xu' anywhere in the sentence. >So Jimbob goes off and reads the Codex Woldemar. He then asks why I didn't >tell him that the emotions and questions were the same. I explain to him >that in English, we say 'ick' to express displeasure, and we rephrase the >sentence to ask a question. But we don't always, at least in the spoken language. "You went?" is grammatical English, and corresponds exactly to "do [pu] klama ?xu". >"In Lojban," I say, "the two can occupy the same grammatical space. Not only "can". They DO. >But 'How do I ask a question' and 'how do I express >displeasure' are still very different questions, linguistically. That is NOT true. That is malglico, or at least malropno. The proper Lojbanic phrasing is "How do I express/indicate displeasure/obligation/interest/agreement[all attitudinals so far] /contrast/parallelism[discursives]/supposition[evidential]/interrogation[xu]?" All of them are expressions or indications that are independent of and metalinguistic with respect to the predication that is the basis for the Lojban sentence. If someone tries to ask the questions as if they were unrelated, the proper answer is that Lojban communicates a variety of different messages as independent meta-indications from the core sentence. > It doesn't >matter that the answer is the same, because it doesn't have to be. That in >Lojban it is, makes no difference as to what the questions ask." The assumption that the questions are different is a false one. > And then, Jimbob achieves enlightenment. But if enlightenment is sought, then you should not be misleading him in the first explanation by implying that they are different things. 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