[lojban-beginners] Re: dicussions about basic vocabulary

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Monday 28 May 2007 18:33, Vid Sintef wrote:
> I, too, had been naively thinking it should be ok if I treat gismu as
> "noun" or "verb" or "adjective" in accordance with their English
> translations; but I regret, because that didn't realy help improve my
> understanding of Lojban. It might also become a stumbling block to one's
> future progress if he falsely gets used to that idea at an early stage of
> learning. My suggestion is that every Lojban learner must be aware, from
> the beginning, of the fact that gismu is not "noun" nor "verb" nor
> "adjective"; it's "gismu".

Actually the part of speech is the brivla; gismu is a morphological class of 
brivla. The closest thing in natural languages to the brivla is the verb.

It's not a good idea to treat brivla as nouns or adjectives in accordance with 
their English translations. They are all brivla; it is just as valid to say 
{le xekri cu mlatu} as {le mlatu cu xekri}. It would be better to show them 
doing verblike things, such as having tense (ta pu zdani mi).

Also, if you show any tanru, emphasize that the seltau is not an adjective 
(there is no such thing in Lojban) and the tertau is not a noun. They are 
both brivla.

Pierre