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Re: [lojban] multiple choice questions



In a message dated 6/5/2001 7:44:33 PM Central Daylight Time,
phma@oltronics.net writes:


But if I ask which of five things you want, and you answer with four
conjunctions, I may be pondering for a minute or two figuring out that you
want
coffee and sugar, or tea and cream, but not both, and it doesn't matter
whether
you get orange juice. If I ask using the member-of-set construct, and you
answer with a list, I know what you want immediately.


True, but if you use more than one or two conjunctions in any of these
situations you are better off making a list, because the consequences of
various conjunctions on one another boggles the mind pretty quickly.  To be
sure, left grouped conjunctions, the standard answer here, are very little
problem and amount to a list anyhow (except that you have to remember what
ordered you offered the things in).  {ji} does not, in any case, force the
shortest answer, {e enai enai e e} say; you can put the items in too.  
Lojbanic sentences are often inconvenient for us, but they may not be for
Lojbanders.