[lojban-beginners] Re: How versatile is "nu"?

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Mar 13, 2010 at 1:26 PM, Luke Bergen <lukeabergen@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  It just feels strange to me.  I understand myself to be seeing a man who is
> running as opposed to the event of running itself.

But there is a subtle difference, although it is not too obvious in
this particular example. You could in principle see a man who is
running without seeing that he is running. For a more obvious example,
you could see a man who has his eyes closed without seeing that he has
his eyes closed (because you see him from the back, for example). So:

   mi viska lo nanmu poi lo kanla be ke'a cu ganlo

is different from:

  mi viska lo nu lo kanla be lo nanmu cu ganlo

> I don't like using distinctions that are redundant.  But there are times
> where I would like to specify that I for example {pu'u kukte} instead of
> {za'i kukte} and where I want to be more specific than just {nu kukte}

What do you mean that you pu'u kukte or za'i kukte? It is an event,
not you, that could pu'u something or za'i something. "za'i kukte"
would be the normal interpretation of "nu kukte", since something
being delicious is normally a state.

mu'o mi'e xorxes