{se te se} and its friends are sufficiently clunky that I'd honestly consider proposing cmavo that switch x2 and x*, maybe {te'ai}, {ve'ai}, and {xe'ai}, or something. They'd have obvious meanings in terms of current SE when you think about it but much less obvious when you don't. {te'ai} == {te se te}; {ve'ai} == {ve se ve}; {xe'ai} == {xe se xe}. ({se SE se} turns out to be the same thing in all these cases.) Of course this starts bringing you down the slippery slope of doing x3-x4, x3-x5, and x4-x5 too, but that's still only 6 new CV'VV, not that bad for a much more complete SE system.
Otherwise a fantastic set of points.
mu'o mi'e .latros.On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 4:22 AM, Stela Selckiku <selckiku@gmail.com> wrote:
> Is there a way to use something more precise than {co'e} in the secondOnce something is inside of an abstraction it tends to become
> phrase without sacrificing much conciseness?
difficult to extract it again. This would be quite difficult to solve
in the general case even if you were tinkering with the language. You
might make a special purpose tool to dig things out of one level of
abstraction, but then add another level of abstraction and you're lost
again! A better solution than making confusing complicated tools for
climbing out of abstractions is to try not to dig yourself into that
hole in the first place. :) For instance:
.i la .loglan. zasti .i mi tcidu cilre lo du'u go'i .i ba za bo go'i
lo du'u la .lojban. go'e
Also, don't underestimate the usefulness of {cei}. It rarely comes in
handy translating how you would say things in another language,
because other languages don't have that power. But if you get used to
using {cei} it allows you to express things very concisely in a
different, Lojbanic way. You're not used to being able to build a
complex description of a relation and then keep it handy, applying it
again & again. In other languages once you've built something you
only have a moment to make repeated use of it with "it" or "that" and
then it fades. In Lojban you can make long-term plans, stocking up an
arsenal of concepts useful in the story you're telling. For instance:
.i mi cilre cei broda lo du'u zasti kei lo bangu fu lo nu tcidu .i
broda fi la .loglan. .i ba za bo broda fi la .lojban.
That's reasonably concise, but you've also created a potent tool.(*)
Now you can say later "ca lo nu broda fi la .lojban. kei ku li'o"
(when I did that to Lojban, blah blah blah), except the "that" isn't
subject to being confused by every possible referent that comes along.
.i broda fi la'o .bangu. Esperanto .bangu. goi .e bu pu lo nu broda fi
la .lojban. goi ly. .i ca bo broda so'i da .e bu .i ba lo nu broda fi
ly. kei mi co'a broda so'i da ly. gi'e broda so'u po'o da .e bu
(I learned about Esperanto before I learned about Lojban. Back then I
learned lots about Esperanto. After I learned about Lojban, I started
to learn lots about Lojban and only a little about Esperanto.)
If you think translating into Lojban is challenging, try translating
back out of it after you're juggling a bunch of pro-sumti and
pro-bridi! :)
mi'e .selkik. mu'o
(*) You could make it even more potent by changing "cilre" to "se te
se cilre" and leaving off the "fi" everywhere, but I decided to leave
in the "fi" so as not to confuse you with too many tricks at once!!
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