[lojban-beginners] Re: tanru order

["Brett Williams" <mungojelly@gmail.com>]

On 6/29/08, Chris Capel <pdf23ds@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm not sure I was clear here. I simply meant to ask whether {mutce
vajni} and {mulno manku} would usually be the better order.

I mildly prefer {vajni mutce} and {manku mulno} because they seem lobykai to me, intuitively.  Perhaps i just like those forms because they are more sensible in Lojban than in other languages; they make me feel special.  But perhaps there truly is something contrarian in lo'e ka lobykai-- particularly in these still early days, while we're establishing our own identity. 

I think there's a very interesting experience, in the process of speaking Lojban, just after you say a selbri.  The selbri, and particularly the tertau, rigidly determines the place structure of the sentence, so it's what you've got to get right to put everything into its proper role.  Right after you say a selbri, you have a chance to consider whether what you've said gives the proper place structure for what you meant to say.  If it doesn't, you can say a selbri that does give the structure you want, putting it into the tertau role and what you've already said into the seltau role. 
 
The process of speaking and simultaneously constructing a tanru, therefore, I see as a process where you can begin carelessly, saying tangentially related concepts, and then build a proper structure after a moment when you've decided what it is you're saying.  For instance imagine I was pointing out a crystal ball to you: I might start by pointing and saying "ti", putting the object into the first place of an unspecified relationship.  Then next I can say a word that starts to shape my description, without it having to necessarily be something that the "ti" is or does, for instance I thought of saying "jijnu", intuit, because that's one thing crystal balls are used for.  So far what I've actually said is "ti jijnu", which isn't sensible at all, because only people can jijnu and not objects, but fortunately because of the structure of tanru I can keep talking until I make sense, and say "ah, well, that was just the seltau, really, see?"  Next I can say "makfa", which makes it "ti jijnu makfa", putting "jijnu" into a new seltau role.  I don't really mean to be saying that the crystal ball is magic, though, so next I'll say "bolci", spherical object.  Now I've said something perfectly sensible, in the end: "ti jijnu makfa bolci", this is a spherical object of a type related to magic of the intuiting kind.  Now all of the magic and jijnu juju is confined to the seltau, where we can say "ah, well, the unspecified relationship is something about history and folktales and superstitions, that's all." 
  
There is a different art to literary tanru, where the structure can be considered more carefully.  The inverse process to the one I've just described still happens, however, in the mind of the listener: When hearing a selbri, your mind rests in an unfinished state until the selbri is sealed, unsure whether each emerging word is the true tertau, or about to be usurped and seltau-ized.  A well crafted literary tanru should in my opinion therefore be conscious of this process of uncertainty and expectation.  It's a matter of what idea you put into your listener's mind first: whether they should first think of it as dark, and then think of that as a type of fullness, or think of it as full, and then think of that as a type of darkness.  The tanru "manku mulno" and "mulno manku" both continue to be available to us as Lojbanic possibilities, all the richer, hopefully, for this conversation. :) 
 
mu'o mi'e .bret. mi'e .selkik. mi'e selckiku