Re: [lojban-beginners] .i preti lo preti

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

On Monday 13 December 2010 12:21:08 Alex Rozenshteyn wrote:
> Firstly, is the subject valid?  I have a question about questions.
> Secondly, would {.i di'e preti lo preti} also worked?
> Thirdly, could {preti preti} be used as a tanru to mean {preti be lo
> preti}, and would that be "x1 is a question about questions by questioner
> x3 to audience x4"?

Yes, yes, and yes, but you still have x2 in the place structure of "preti 
preti".

> Fourthly, the actual question:
>
> In English, the following exchange occurs with some regularity:
>
> "What's up?"
> "Nothing."
>
> The "nothing" in this context is kinda like {zo'e}, right?  It is a
> response to the question that gives no additional information.

It gives some information, but not much. If something unusual that the 
questioner should know about were happening, I would not answer "nothing". So 
it's more like "zu'i".

> {.i do mo}
> {co'e}
>
> might be an equivalent exchange, right?

Sort of, but there is no bridi equivalent of "zu'i". You could say "zu'i 
co'e", or if you're feeling verbose but have nothing to say, "zo'e cu'i zu'i 
co'e".

> But what if the question is {do djica ma}?
> A response that confers no information would be {zo'e}.
>
> What about (an admittedly contrived) {do djica ma ma}?
> You'd need to respond {zo'e zo'e}, right?

You could, or you could answer "lo sarvanju zo'e", or "zo'e lo nu comdaidza".

> So is there a single response that covers all those possibilities?
> {su}?  I don't quite like that.

"su" erases the utterance, which is not the same as answering the question 
with no information. "na'i" says there's something wrong with the question.

Pierre
-- 
li ze te'a ci vu'u ci bi'e te'a mu du
li ci su'i ze te'a mu bi'e vu'u ci

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