[lojban-beginners] Re: {sei}

["Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 6/5/07, Karl Naylor <karl.org@gmail.com> wrote:
> What about:
>
> la .djan. cusku lu mi viska lo mlatu .i .ai mi tavla ri
>
> I would read {.i .ai mi tavla ri} as part of the quoted text expressed
> by John, not as the quoter's own remark, in which case {li'u} is not
> elidable except at the end of text.  Chapter 19 Section 9.1 states
> that {li'u} is almost never elidable except at the end of text,
> supporting this interpretation.

The grammar of the LU-construct is:

            LU text LIhU?

So LIhU is technically elidable, but any grammatical text will remain
within the quote until LIhU is found.

An example where it could be elided is:

         lu mi viska lo mlatu cu se cusku la .djan.

because {mi viska lo mlatu cu se cusku la .djan.} is not a grammatical
text, so when the {cu} appears the quote must end.

Personally, I prefer never to elide the terminators {li'u}, {toi} and {tu'o},
even when they could be elided, because I find the result quite confusing.
All other terminators I prefer to elide whenever they can be elided.
The particularity of these three is that they enclose a full text:

                 LU text LIhU?
                 TO text TOI?
                 TUhE text-1 TUhO?

mu'o mi'e xorxes