From lojban@solipsys.co.uk Fri Oct 22 14:55:30 2004 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban@solipsys.co.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 85796 invoked from network); 22 Oct 2004 21:55:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.172) by m21.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 22 Oct 2004 21:55:30 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n21a.bulk.scd.yahoo.com) (66.94.237.50) by mta4.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 22 Oct 2004 21:55:29 -0000 Received: from [66.218.66.59] by n21.bulk.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 22 Oct 2004 21:55:29 -0000 Received: from [66.218.67.180] by mailer8.bulk.scd.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 22 Oct 2004 21:55:29 -0000 Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 21:55:25 -0000 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <20041022200740.70906.qmail@web51610.mail.yahoo.com> User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 2090 X-Mailer: Yahoo Groups Message Poster X-Yahoo-Newman-Property: groups-compose X-eGroups-Remote-IP: 66.94.237.50 From: "riderofgiraffes" X-Originating-IP: 194.153.10.165 Subject: Re: Help in examples ... X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=195115829 X-Yahoo-Profile: riderofgiraffes X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 23245 > "my father" is not a noun but > works like a noun. Er, I would suggest that "my father" is, in fact, exactly a complex noun. > All this is not precise, is methaphor. And I disagree with you. This is not metaphor, these are grammatical terms, and they are precise. One of us is confused. Naturally, I think it's you. Perhaps someone else can find agreed common ground. > What I'm saying is that we may label things however we > want as long as we get the meaning across. This is in part exactly my point - you *cannot* label things however you choose because then they do *not* get the point across. Labelling {sumti} as "nouns" is grossly misleading. It denies the unification and consistency offered by the lojban grammar, one of its strongest points. > No particular way of labelling has magical effects. Some ways of labelling have deeply detrimental effects. This is so obvious, especially if you believe the SWH, that I'm sure you can't believe otherwise, but you seem to be claiming so. Please tell me I'm misunderstanding you and clarify your position. > If someone wants to know how lojban works (I'm > not saying to learn it), you must explain that > {le karce cu blanu} means > "car is blue", regardless of whether you say that > {blanu} is a "gismu", a "verb" or a "pigeon". Actually it's closer to meaning something like "Some thing or things that I choose to refer to as a car or cars, is/are/were/will be blue." > Using nouns that a lojbanist would approve off > doesn't make things easier to understand at all. I didn't say she wants to know how it works, I said I'm trying to explain why the English grammatical terms are less accurate and often inappropriate. Yes, one can say that generally {sumti} play the role of nouns, and {selbri} play the role of verbs, and that this is not always accurate, but without specific examples it's hard to make that stick. Are you really suggesting that {sumti} are always complex nouns? If not, can you give me an example? Just one will do.