[lojban-beginners] Re: du'e preti

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

On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 7:16 PM, Minimiscience <minimiscience@gmail.com> wrote:
> However, reading the first paragraph of that section again, I think it might
> actually mean that a vocative cannot take the place of a terminator and that
> if you were going to insert a terminator somewhere, following it with a
> vocative wouldn't make it elidable, as the <bridi> would continue
> uninterrupted after it.

That's probably what they intended to say, yes, and it's correct.

> > The rules for "magic words" are not quite fully defined yet, but in the
> PEG
> > grammar a single {si} will erase the whole construct, including the ZOI or
> > LOhU, together with anything within it, empty or not.
>
> How authoritative is this PEG grammar?

The official formal grammar and parser don't really handle "magic words",
so I think the PEG is the most authoritative there is in that respect, though
not official yet. The same could be said of the morphology section, which
is not handled by the official formal grammar.

> Section 19.13 of the LRG says that a
> <si> is needed for each word, with the quoted text counting as a single
> word.

That produces some weird results, as a re-opened LOhU or ZOI quote
(i.e. one with the terminator erased) ends up behaving differently than one
not yet closed for the first time. These are interesting details to have fun
with, but not really very relevant to the actual use of the language.


> If I were to form such a <tanru> with "<cmaci>," which word should I form it
> with -- <girzu>, <terpoi>, or <selcmi>?  "<girzu>" doesn't really seem like
> the best choice, given that mathematics already has things called "groups"
> which refer to something entirely different from the common meaning of the
> word.

Right, and also {girzu} has many places not really relevant. {terpoi} also
seems to bring in things that are not necessarily relevant, and {selcmi}
would exclude the empty set. {zilcmi} has been proposed, which would
be {cmima} with the x1 place eliminated.

mu'o mi'e xorxes