[lojban-beginners] Re: jai

[Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Aug 26, 2009 at 7:08 PM, Luke Bergen<lukeabergen@gmail.com> wrote:
> So I have had this concept {jai} explained to me at least 4 times now. Each
> time I leave the chat room/mailing list/wherever honestly believing that
> "now I get it" only to find a couple days later that it's just as foggy as
> it was before the explanation. Could I get one last explaniation that
> explains the theory and a bunch of practical examples for the different
> uses? Could these examples have as little other grammer as possible to
> cloud the usage of {jai}?
>
> Additionally, how vital is {jai} to becoming fluent in lojban?
> Hypothetically, if I never did end up "getting it", how badly would that
> effect my "fluency" in lojban?
>

  The problem is that jai, like "bo" has several different uses
depending on where it appears.  Judson correctly described jai before
a brivla where it is the "inverse" of tu'a, it makes something whose
x1 normally a abstraction into a place taking a concrete thing that
implies the abstraction (it simultaneously takes what would have
originally been in the x1 place to a place that is onlyspecifiable
with "fai").  Using jai before a modal and a brivla (e.g. "tai bajra")
means that you x1 of the bridi is what would have been in the modal
place of the bridi before (i.e. "ko'a jai tai bajra" = "bajra tai
ko'a") and the old x1 place is again in the "fai" place.

  Can you get away without ever getting the hang of it?  Well, it's
sometimes useful when writing, since it allows you to specify things
in sumti you might not have been able to do easily before, but I don't
use it that much (it appears 12 times in "Esther").  However, you
probably need to understand it in order to read other people's stuff.

           --gejyspa