[lojban-beginners] Re: cmavo can be selbri?

[jkominek@miranda.org]

On Wed, Oct 13, 2004 at 01:56:41AM -0700, Starling wrote:
> Actually my question had to do with whether all cmavo could be used as
> the selbri in a bridi.  'xu' cannot, while 'du' can it seems.  I
> suppose it's just arbitrary, or obvious

There is a list of them. As, I believe, Robin mentioned.

> But I did want to make sure there wasn't some rule I haven't found
> yet that states all cmavo can be used as selbri, even ones that
> don't fit any undestandable thought pattern.

The rule is: "The ones on the list are selbri. The rest aren't."

They have place structures defined in the reference grammar.

> You are right though.  ;)  I said "xu zo'e cmavo la xu" when the sumti
> should have been "zo xu" and placed in x1 not x2 of cmavo.  Thus "zo
> xu cmavo" makes good sense.  And to go full circle, this might make
> sense as well to equate 'xu' as a cmavo-thing.
> 
> zo xu du le cmavo

Any time you're about to write a bridi of the form "X du le Y": Stop.
Do not do it. You just want "X Y". Or, "zo xu cmavo" in this case.

Your above utterance is grammatically valid, but horrible and doesn't
mean what you want.

> Not sure if that also means all cmavo are 'xu' (which is false) but
> having not yet mastered lojban numbers I'm definitely stretching to
> use 'du' as a selbri.

I don't see how you can stretch it. You might as well say "I'm definitely
stretching to use a Ford Crown Victoria as a car."

-- 
Jay Kominek <jkominek@miranda.org>
Don't worry,
Things have an annoying tendency to work out.