[lojban-beginners] du'e preti

[Minimiscience <minimiscience@gmail.com>]

doi ba'o cilre lobypli:

I have completed the very excellent *Lojban for Beginners* and looked  
through
parts of the Lojban Reference Grammar for elaboration on several topics;
however, I still have quite a number of questions about the Lojban  
language:

  1. If all of the places of a <bridi> have been filled, and said  
<bridi> is
     nested inside another <bridi> (e.g., in an abstraction), is it  
still
     necessary to explicitly terminate the nested <bridi> if it is  
followed by
     a <sumti> of the main <bridi>?

  2. How should overlapping places be interpreted?  E.g., in "<fe ti  
klama fa
     mi ta>," does <ta> occupy the second or third place of <klama>?   
Is this
     sentence even grammatically correct?

  3. When joining two <sumti> with <joi>, it doesn't actually seem  
necessary to
     terminate the former one with <ku>.  The justification given in  
the LRG
     (§14.14) only applies to poorly written parsers without look-ahead
     capabilities, which yacc-generated parsers almost certainly are  
not.
     Unless there exists a construct which can be either a <selbri>  
or a
     <sumti> simultaneously, is there any good reason why <ku> should  
be
     required here?

  4. Is it permissible to combine a ZAhO <cmavo> with other tense  
<cmavo> to
     use as a single <sumti tcita>?  If so, am I right in thinking  
that a ZAhO
     <cmavo> used as a <sumti tcita> alone is grammatically  
equivalent to that
     same <cmavo> being preceded by "<ca>"?  If not, elaborate on  
what it means
     for such a compound <cmavo> to be used as a <sumti tcita>.

  5. Why can't an elidable terminator be elided when followed by a  
vocative
     phrase (LRG, §6.11)?  As the meaning of a vocative is  
independent of its
     location and has no real bearing on the meaning of the surrounding
     <bridi>, what difference does it make whether or not the elidable
     terminator is present?

  6. When a <sumti> has internal <sumti> and/or a relative clause  
attached to
     it, does its terminating <ku> (if present) belong before or  
after the
     internal <sumti> or clause?

  7. Can the terminator "<vau>" be applied to discursive <bridi>  
introduced
     with "<sei>"?

  8. How do you state that someone said a string of non-grammatical  
words that
     include "<le'u>" but not "<zo>" or "<zoi>"?

  9. After uttering an empty ZOI or LOhU construct, if one were to  
erase it
     with <si>s, would it be necessary to utter a <si> for the empty  
quoted
     text?

 10. What pro-<sumti> should be used to refer to the speaker and only  
a few of
     many listeners?

 11. Can <finti> be used to say that one invented a physical device  
(which
     would seem to contrast with its other translations)?  If not,  
what word
     should be used?  If yes, how can one distinguish invention of a  
physical
     device from composition of literature, music, et cetera?

 12. Does "<girzu>" suffice as a term for "unordered set" (or, at  
least, a set
     that does not necessarily have an intrinsic order), or must we  
be content
     with "<terpoi>" and "<selcmi>"?

 13. Regarding modals like "<ri'a>," "<mu'i>," "<ki'u>," & "<ni'i>,"  
which one
     is used for stating why a (non-human) animal did something?   
Which one is
     used when the reason is an instinct or a primitive need?  What  
about
     reflexes?  Which one is used for things which can be expressed  
as the
     result of a personality trait?  What modal is used when stating  
that
     someone did something because he or she was hypnotized?  Which  
one would
     most likely be used if one was forced to do something or be  
killed?  What
     if a person was tricked into doing something?  I could probably  
think of
     more situations, but this should be enough for now.

 14. I am quite certain that I once read somewhere that the spaces in  
Lojban
     text are unnecessary and that words can be unambiguously  
determined from
     the text without them; however, I cannot find where I read this  
(if ever),
     and the issues raised in the next three questions seem to go  
against that
     claim.  Hence, just to be clear, are the spaces in Lojbanic text  
optional
     & unnecessary?  Do the claim that Lojban sounds can be broken up  
into
     words in exactly one way and the audio-visual isomorphism of the  
language
     together imply that written Lojban does not change when the  
spaces are
     removed?  How does the answer to this interact with the below  
three
     queries?

 15. According to the Lojban Reference Grammar, chapter 4, section 9,  
item 5,
     any monosyllabic <cmavo> before a <brivla> must be followed by a  
pause,
     yet this would require an inordinate amount of pauses to be  
inserted into
     text.  By "pause," does the LRG mean a <denpa bu>, in which case  
why has
     no one been following this rule, or does it mean a space, in  
which case
     how does this interact with Lojban's claims of audio-visual  
isomorphism
     and that sounds can be divided into words in only one way?

 16. Section 17.4 of the LRG states that the spaces in <denpa bu> and  
<slaka
     bu> are mandatory to avoid confusion with <fu'ivla>, yet the  
rules for
     <fu'ivla> explicitly prohibit compounds of <gismu> & <cmavo>.   
Why is the
     former restriction there?

 17. If the spaces are omitted from a text, how can one tell where a  
<fu'ivla>
     ends?  For example, how do you know that "<cidjrspageti>" is  
entirely one
     <fu'ivla> and not, say, "<ci djrspa ge ti>"?

 18. When the LRG states that all <brivla> are emphasised on the  
penultimate
     syllable, is it merely repeating a consequence of the  
pronunciation rules,
     or is it indirectly requiring that the penultimate syllable of a  
<brivla>
     not contain a syllabic consonant or "y"?  If the former,  
wouldn't it be
     simpler for it to just state that <brivla> must have at least two
     syllables?

 19. Exactly what changes to the language have been made since the  
release of
     *The Complete Lojban Language*/the Lojban Reference Grammar?   
Does there
     exist a completely up-to-date compilation of all of the rules of  
Lojban
     grammar (that is at least more user-friendly than that  
horrendous tiki)?

 20. In the HTML version of the LRG, the table in item 4 of §4.14 is  
clearly
     not formatted properly; how should it appear?

 21. Why do the subunit <lujvo> listed in the notes for "<dekpu>" use  
the <se>
     conversion rather than <ve>?

 22. Why are there 768 <lujvo> that appear in the old <lujvo> list  
but not the
     "current" one?

I have more questions, but they can be dealt with later.  For now, the  
answers
to these will be just fine.

mu'omi'e la'o gy. Minimiscience .gy.