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[bpfk] Re: Fiat Attempt #2
Am Dienstag, 9. Juli 2013 18:19:57 UTC+2 schrieb Robin Powell:
I would like to define the defaults for {za'u} and {me'i} to be
"contextually specified, usually the current value for the thing
under discussion", rather than {pa}.
I always take {me'i} as {me'i ro}, and {za'u} indeed as {za'u pa}. I find this useful, because "plurality" is something that is often relevant:
{lo za'u mei} gives us a plurality with very few syllables. {lo za'u pa mei} is much less elegant in my opinion.
Two reasons:
1. {za'u} and {su'o} mean almost exactly the same thing as
currently defined, similarily {me'i} and {su'e}. Freaking annoying.
As noted, they are similar, but e.g. < and <= are not the same, and having differenent words for them is useful.
2. Everybody uses them that way anyways; see {za'u re'u}, which is
very common, and has almost no meaning without this change:
http://corpus.lojban.org/corpus/search/za'ure'u?showall=y and
http://corpus.lojban.org/corpus/search/za'u%20re'u?showall=y
{za'u [pa] re'u} means "not for the first time" or "for the more-than-1-th time".
If {xo'e} is {mu}, say, then {za'u mu re'u} doesn't mean "again" either; it means "for more-than-the-5-th time".
You need to either say the exact number (which is often impossible to count), or just say "za'u pa re'u", which means "I'm doing this, and I've done it before", which is pretty close to "again".
Yet another approach would be to use {[vei] xo'e su'i pa re'u}, but it needs to be made grammatical first.
In addition, it would give me a clean way to say "I need more flour
for this cake", or whatever.
I think it comes down to what is perceived as the more common situation; the times where you want an elliptical number or the times where you want a clear default of {pa} (or {ro}). Choosing the former means having to add more syllables in the latter case, and vice versa.
I just don't see very clearly how {xo'e} is a much better default than {pa} for {za'u} and {ro} for {me'i}.
mu'o mi'e la selpa'i
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