Re: [lojban-beginners] Complicated parallelism question

[Stela Selckiku <selckiku@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 12:46 PM, Alex Rozenshteyn <rpglover64@gmail.com> wrote:
> Beautiful.  uacai uisai

.o'a .i'o

> Although {lo'u se te se le'u .oi .a'unai co'e}

It's fine once you get used to it.  The way it works is inside to
outside, so {te se broda} means apply se, then apply te, "te (se
broda)" (result: x3 x1 x2).  We make complicated ones for fun (I've
named it {la cakselkei} or "the Shell Game", after the traditional
con-game), but the only way it's ever actually used in normal
conversation is with a repetition, like {se te se} or {xe ve xe}, and
what it does in those cases is even simpler: It switches the two
places.

If you're making a simple bridi that's not necessary; tagging with FA
is much easier.  But there are a few situations where switching places
(almost always x2 and x3) is the most natural way to deal with a
situation.  The most common of these is when combining two selbri,
like with {gi'e} or {je}.  The x1 places line up, but then you want
the second place to be the x2 of one of the selbri and the x3 of the
other.  Artificial example: I see you and give you something: {mi
viska gi'e se te se dunda vau do}

> Makes me wonder, though; is there a way to use ce'u or something to mark a
> place deeply nested in a bridi and make that one of the places of the bridi?

I can think of a few ways.  One is indeed to use {ce'u}.  A property
is a sumti like any other, so you can assign it a pro-sumti and then
throw it around:

ko'a goi lo ka mi cilre lo du'u ce'u zasti kei fu lo nu tcidu

OK, now {ko'a} means the property of being something that I've learned
the fact of its existence by reading.  Now, to {ckaji ko'a} is to have
your existence learned about by me reading!  So:

la .loglan. ckaji ko'a .i ba za bo la .lojban. go'i

The other way that occurs to me is just to give a definition for a
word, in one of the normal ways we give definitions, like with {xy xi
pa} (x subscript 1, which we usually lazily write as x1), etc.

.i .ai mi ba zi pilno zo broda .i zo broda cu se smuni ca'e lo du'u mi
cilre lo du'u xy xi pa zasti kei fu lo nu tcidu .i la .loglan. broda
.i ba za bo la .lojban. broda

Another, and actually even more common, approach is to invent a lujvo
on the spot, which can even enrich the language if the lujvo you
invent turns out to be generally useful.  For instance if you want to
talk about learning the existence of things by reading, you might
invent {tidzatcli} (tcidu zei zasti zei cilre).  Frankly, people (I'm
looking at you, Xorxes and Gejyspa) usually actually just make up
lujvo on the spot and use only their short forms and don't give a
definition and expect you to decipher them and understand them from
context!  Which surprisingly is often possible, if somewhat of a
brain-stretcher.  But giving a definition could be helpful. :)

mi'e la stela selckiku mu'o

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Lojban Beginners" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban-beginners@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban-beginners+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban-beginners?hl=en.