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Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 23:50:39 +0200
Message-ID: <e6e140ec0909091450p3a3fafdfnac563a3082337be1@mail.gmail.com>
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: let us
From: Ivo Doko <ivo.doko@gmail.com>
To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org
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2009/9/9 Squark Rabinovich <top.squark@gmail.com>:
> It's my personal point of view, but I don't think lojban should try to be
> "culturally neutral" from the point of view of grammar, in the sense of not
> having grammar more similar to one existing language or another. The grammar
> of lojban should have nothing to do with the grammar of natural languages.
> Instead, it should strive to be logical, efficient and precise in the
> expression of meaning. If if turns out similar to one or another natural
> language in certain aspects, that's merely an unimportant coincidence.
> "let's" is not expressed as a pronoun in any of the 3 languages I speak.
> Neither is regular imperative. However, in lojban imperative is expressed by
> a sumti cmavo which is logical, simple and allows for easy expression of
> very generic imperative sentences. If so, why shouldn't "let's" be the same?

I want to make it clear that I'm not talking about the translation of
"let's" by itself, but the translation of the expression that you get
when you put another verb after "let's", e.g. "let's eat", "let's go",
"let's talk", etcetera. "Let's", alone, obviously doesn't make an
imperative.

Some of these expressions sound more order-like than others, though.
For example, "Let's go" said by a parent to his/her child sounds much
more order-like and imperative-like than "Let's go get something to
eat" said by someone to his/her friend, which sounds more like a
proposition. But then again, "Pass me the salt, please" *is* an
imperative form and yet sounds much less order-like than both of those
sentences, because it actually isn't an order but a polite request.
Therefore, I don't think we should base our decision on whether "Let's
<VERB>" is an imperative form or not solely on the way it sounds.
Whether it *should* be treated as an imperative in Lojban is
definitely a thing to discuss. As I already said, I find the idea of
it being treated as an imperative completely natural, but that doesn't
mean anything - that's how I'm used to thinking about it because
that's how it's treated in my native language. I've just thrown my two
cents here and noticed that it might not be a bad idea to treat it as
an imperative form. There are people way more proficient in Lojban
than me who should discuss that.

But, if I may add just something else to this, it seems to me that
"Let's <VERB>" should be translated differently into Lojban, depending
on whether it's actually an order or a request. Lojban is supposed to
be a logical language and, as I've already demonstrated, in our
everyday natural-languages communications we use imperative forms
loosely, regardless of whether we want to actually say an order, or a
plea, or a request, or a proposition, or something completely else. I
think that, in the cases where "Let's <VERB>" is meant as an order, it
should, appropriately, be translated using imperative. In the cases
where "Let's <VERB>" is meant as something else, like a request or a
proposition, it should, equally appropriately, be translated as
whatever it's meant to be - request, proposition, plea or whatever.
And I think this should apply not only to the "Let's <VERB>" forms,
but to any "standard" imperative sentences. I.e., "Step out of the
vehicle!" shouted by the police should be translated into Lojban as
imperative, whereas "Pass me the salt, please" should be translated as
a polite request.

It's too easy to see an imperative form and decide to translate it
using imperative, but we should know what we actually want to say by
that "imperative" when we translate it into Lojban.