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Re: [lojban-beginners] Re: Differenes between “ka” and “nu”
On Friday, July 24, 2015 at 12:30:26 AM UTC+3, selpa'i wrote:la zipcpi cu cusku di'e
> It is easier and
> cleaner for a language like Lojban to split the two meanings into two
> separate brivla, one that uses {nu} and one that uses {ka}.
>
> Yes, I have seen {kaidji} and made {kaitcu} as well,
(I already use nitcu2 as a property)
> but I'm not sure
> this is a sustainable route; we'd then need new brivla for every brivla
> where a {ka} belonging to x1 is useful as a substitution of {nu}, such
> as {gleki}, {nelci}, etc...
Would we really, though? Is it necessary to have ka-variants of
everything? Would you, hypothetically, use {mi sruma lo ka ce'u bilma}
for "I assume [myself] to be sick"? Or what about {mi kanpe lo ka ce'u
ba jinga}? Would it be too much to say {mi kanpe lo nu mi ba jinga}?
Yes, given that {mi} can be a long noun with nouns inside, and the clause with {kanpe} can be inside another clause so not {ri}, not {vo'a}.
And {lo no'a cu}, a lengthy construct would be the only safe option (compare short English infinitive "to").
The {ce'u} actually doesn't save us that much trouble compared to using
one of the usual back-referencing mechanisms. Logically speaking, the
reason why {ka} is used in places like nitcu2 or troci2 is not in order
to not have to repeat the x1, but because it avoids sumti raising and
makes the predicates much easier to interpret and define.
So that's it. We need definitions that define these relations.
Up to now such usage was intuitive and/or the one users got used to.
It is
primarily a semantic concern, not one of convenience; convenience is
only a lucky by-product of it.
It is also a concern of mastering the language, which this thread was started with.
mi'e la selpa'i mu'o
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