[lojban-beginners] Re: The Prophet

["Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 8/7/07, Vid Sintef <picos.picos@gmail.com> wrote:
> What about the interdefining relation between the NUs and ZAhOs?

Such as?

> If
> the distinction between the four NU cmavo is unimportant, then the
> precision in the usage of ZAhOs becomes meaningless, doesn't it?

The distinction between different ZAhOs is often crucial.
{co'a citka} says something clearly different to {za'o citka}.

I'm not saying the distinction between the four NU cmavo is unimportant.
What I'm saying is that the choice of cmavo (almost?) never adds anything
to the meaning that the sub-bridi already has by itself.

Similarly, the difference between male and female is not unimportant,
but we don't need a different gadri for {lo mamta} and for {lo patfu},
because the sex difference is already contained in the meanings of
{mamta} and {patfu}. We could have grammatical gender marked in the
gadri in addition, like many languages do, but we don't.

Do za'i/pu'u/zu'o/mu'e ever add anything not already present in the
meaning of the bridi that they transform?

mu'o mi'e xorxes