From: "Jorge Llambias" <jjllambias@hotmail.com>
To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: FAhA-cmavo
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 15:08:38 +0000
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[Note: This answer reflects my own usage. There is not as
yet a settled consensus on the use of these cmavo.]

>What is the difference between {mi gunka vu le mi zdani} and
>{mi gunka to'o le mi zdani}? I translate both sentences with
>"I work far away from my home."

Most FAhAs indicate a position with respect to a reference point,
but {fa'a} and {to'o} are special in that they indicate a
direction rather than a position. I interpret {to'o le mi zdani}
to mean "in a direction away from my home". Working is not
something that usually has a direction, so that sentence sounds
unlikely, but for example {le dargu cu dizlo to'o le mi zdani}
means "the road slopes down in a direction away from my home"
(i.e. my home is at the top of a hill, for example).

I use vi-va-vu to tag the magnitude (small-medium-large) of
the distance from the origin. So for example I would say
{mi gunka ki le mi zdani vu lo ki'otre be li mu} to mean
"I work five kilometers away from my home", or more
literally "I work taking my home as the origin, at a long
distance of five kilometers.

To say "I work far away from home" without giving an explicit
distance I might say: {mi gunka ki le mi zdani vuku}.
of

>  And how do you use FAhA-cmavo? {do sanli ri'u mi} is "You
>are standing on the right of me".

Correct.

>Is {do sanli ri'u vi mi}
>the same? Or does the {vi} indicate, that "you are standing
>very close on the right of me"?

I would say {ri'u mi viku} for that, since {ri} would tag
the magnitude of the distance rather than the origin:
{do sanli ri'u mi vi lo centre be li so'u}, "you are
standing only a few centimeters to my right".

Your interpretation is closer to what CLL suggests, but
makes it difficult to tag the actual magnitudes of the
distances.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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