Date: Sun, 07 Mar 2004 10:22:00 +0100
From: GREGORY DYKE <gregory.dyke@epfl.ch>
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Feedback on phrases
To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org
Message-id: <100e21fcf79.fcf79100e21@imap.epfl.ch>
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-language: en
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
Content-disposition: inline
Priority: normal
Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org
Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org
Precedence: bulk
Reply-to: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org
Content-Length: 1634


> 
> Hmm.  I assumed that {palku} was the selbri here, 

no. palku is the brivla used to make the sumti "le mi palku". in the sentence

ta palku ti (those are pants made out of this)

palku is a selbri

in the sentence

le mi palku cu barda (my pants are big)

barda is the selbri
le mi palku is a sumti

but I see it
> shouldn't be the main selbri of the sentence.  Do observatives 
> such as
> {lenku} (or, being in Montreal, {.oisai lenku}) have selbri, as such?

yes. this is a bridi with selbri but with no sumti (they do exist, but they have been elided)

lenku == zo'e lenku zo'e
>
> > le mi palku cu zvati ma (preferred)
> > le mi palku ku zvati ma
> 
> Oops.  Still haven't got the hang of elidable terminators.  I wish CLL
> introduced the terminator at the same time as the opening word...  But
> is the only advantage the missing terminator, or does the swapped
> place structure still draw attention to the {ma}?

no, not really. I prefer having sumti on different sides of the selbri, but it's really not important. In some cases, a shift of focus is interesting, but mostly, it's just a different way of saying something.

> 
> > yes, that is the somewhat clumsy limitation we have: either you 
> claim a particular one, but in that case, you can't assert that it 
> actually is, or you say "any" while saying what it really is.
> 
> I can see the justification for it ({le} and {lo} should never
> implicitly make an assertion) but it does seem awkward.

no! lo does make an assertion:

lo kanba cu citka =
da poi kanba zo'u da citka

there exists a goat such that this goat eats.
 
> ki'e do
je'e


mu'o mi'e greg