[lojban-beginners] Re: Study plan for a quiz- I'd like a second opinion on this one

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Sunday 01 November 2009 04:00:32 tijlan wrote:
> Some languages don't have adjectives, and i wonder how would speakers
> of those languages interpret "morsi" in contrast to "mrobi'o".

Lojban doesn't have adjectives either. The difference is aspect: you spend a 
short time or an instant dying, and are dead thereafter.

> I'm of the opinion that words like "badri" can be considered as either
> an adjective or a verb, respectively corresponding to e.g. the
> Japanese "kanashi-i" and "kanashi-mu", to the English "(to be) sad"
> and "(to) lament", to the Esperanto "(esti) trista" and "tristi", and
> so on (Japanese adjectives does not require a copula like English and
> Esperanto do, so they can be truly verb-less predicates). Some time
> ago i suggested "za'i badri" and "zu'o badri" as a pseudo adjective
> and a pseudo verb that could be used to specify those nat-lang-ish
> senses of this otherwise hermaphrodite jbo-predicate (along which i
> suggested also that NU be able to take words like "mi" as its x1,
> ready for expressions like "mi zu'o badri").

"badri" can mean "to be sad" or "to lament", but "lament" is more 
like "driklaku". The Esperanto and Japanese look like grammatical differences 
that wouldn't show up in Lojban, since Lojban makes no difference between 
adjectives and verbs.

> Would you need "tu'a" before "lo besna"?

Yes. mi jmive tu'a lo besna. The full abstraction is "mi jmive le nu le besna 
cu tolcando".

Pierre
-- 
.i toljundi do .ibabo mi'afra tu'a do
.ibabo damba do .ibabo do jinga
.icu'u la ma'atman.