[lojban-beginners] Re: Feedback on phrases

[Andrew Archibald <archibal@math.mcgill.ca>]

On Sun, Mar 07, 2004 at 10:22:00AM +0100, GREGORY DYKE wrote:

> le mi palku cu barda (my pants are big)
.ija le mi solri blaci cu manku
.i ko se zgike .o'u.u'e

> barda is the selbri
> le mi palku is a sumti

Ah.  Maybe it would be clearer to say that every sentence needs a
selbri at the top level? 

> > I can see the justification for it ({le} and {lo} should never
> > implicitly make an assertion) but it does seem awkward.
> 
> no! lo does make an assertion:
> 
> lo kanba cu citka =
> da poi kanba zo'u da citka
> 
> there exists a goat such that this goat eats.

Well, all {lo} asserts is ``there exists a goat''.  Not that this is
trivial: {lo vofli xarju cu ma} is a question making a rather dubious
statement.  Can it be answered with Hofstadter's "unask that
question!"?  Is {na} sufficient?


co'o

Andrew