mi'e la latro'a mu'o{mi} is not quite "I/we", it is "the speaker(s)". Usually there is only one speaker, in which case it is "I", but in special cases where there are several speakers, it becomes "we", but only to the inclusion of the other speakers.
Lojban is first about unambiguous grammar, with that grammar providing a certain small amount of unambiguous semantics. But the difference between ambiguity and vagueness should be kept in mind when studying it. There are things that are explicitly unspecified, such as tense in an unmarked sentence, and there are things that could be interpreted one of several sharply different ways, but where the speaker probably only meant one. "Time flies like an arrow" is the classic example in English. We try to exclude the latter, not the former. This is part of why there's no default tense. Another reason is that fairly often no tense is desired at all, as you begin to realize with conversational practice.
I agree that the x2 default after the selbri is a bit of a quirk. It is, however, somewhat convenient in subordinate clauses, in that it lets you drop the x1 when the x1 is supplied from outside the clause. For example in {mi klama lo zarci noi vecnu lo plise}, the relative clause pro-sumti {ke'a} is implicitly in the x1 there, since the x2 is filled and the x1 is not. This is common enough that the quirk is actually pretty useful.
Place structure patterns are fairly extensive. They don't seem that way when you don't know very many gismu, but they exist, and are how you learn words after you know a handful. The most natural analogy I can think of is to inflected languages: lojban essentially has numbered instead of named cases. Without a SE, the x1 is essentially nominative while the x2 is essentially accusative.
On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 1:42 PM, tjerk <tjschrod@gmail.com> wrote:
I'm interested in lojban. I hope to state complicated meanings very clearly using lojban,
and without the need for further clarifications as is common in natural languages.
A son of mine has dyslexia, and I read that languages in which each letter can only
be pronounced in one way is much easier for dyslectics to read. Sounds very plausible.
Finnish could help then. But lojban also. Further, language is really his thing. He began
to speak very young and he makes quite complicated grammatical constructions. And generally
knows the effect on meaning changing places of words have. lojban could help him to
transfer his ability in spoken language to written language. And I hope we can have some
fun together learning it.
So far for my motivation. I have some questions and remarks about lojban.
1.
'mi' in lojban means I and also we. So, here lojban is more ambiguous than english. But
lojban is supposed to be less ambiguous than english. Lojban has another 3 words for we,
meaning: me and you, you and others, me and others and not you. So 'mi' could have been
reserved for I without losing expressiveness.
I suppose this thing of lojban is because lojban leaves number open by default. 'le karci'
means the car or the cars. Does 'le pa karci' mean the car and only that, so not the cars?
If so, does 'pa mi' mean I and not we?
Why is there no article in lojban that means exactly one of something?
2.
Tense is also open by default in lojban. So 'mi klama le zarci' can mean I go to the market,
and it can mean I went to the market, and it can mean I will go the market. So this is again
more ambiguous than english. Of course there are words to specify the time, but why is
present tense not the default? Minimizing guessing using context is one of the main goals of
lojban, not?
3.
In lojban the predicate(selbri) can be put everywhere in a sentence, except at the best
place, the begin. That is the normal place for a function. And a selbri is a kind of
function. 'fa' has to be used to be able to put the selbri at the begin: klama fa mi le
zarci. Maybe another cmavo also works.
Where did it go wrong? Trying to resemble the SVO structure of english?
4.
The main effect the place structure grammar of lojban seems to have is elimination of
prepositions. I have my doubts about this. For example, compare 'I go to the market' and 'I
talk to you'. Very different things are happening, but there is also similarity. There is
a destination in both, and that is why to is used in both cases.
In the place structure grammar of lojban a place has no meaning on its own (although 1st
place is maybe always the subject). If a predicate has an argument for some sort of
destination you have to look up its place for the predicate, and also remember that place.Remembering a preposition for notating destination for each predicate seems simpler.--
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