| I was off looking at old stuff and missed the new old stuff going on now:
Directive language, language used with the purpose of getting someone to do the specified thing, has several forms in Lojban and is related to several different gismu: minde, stidi, pikci, cpedu, and probably more, matching yet further English keywords. The obvious forms in Lojban are {ko} imperatives, and sentences, both imperatives and not, with {e'o} and {e'u} (and, more indirectly, {e'a}, {ei}, {e'i}). Given the lack of a clear social structure for Lojban, it is not yet clear what the various differences are among these different predicates and different sentence forms. It is said that imperatives (sentences containing {ko}) are not imperious and {e'o} has some history of representing English "Please," minimal formal politeness. But none of this is cast in jell-o (tm) even. So, usage really does have a role to play here, guided by what little there is in Book and list: both "request" and "suggestion" sound even less imperious than "imperative," for example. But on {ko} several things are clear. 1) {ko} does not have to be the first sumti to make an imperative; any sentence in which {ko} occurs is an imperative, directing the referent of {ko} to so act that the sentence becomes true. 2) while {ko} defaults to {do} for referent, {do} and hence {ko} can be reset in context by {doi} and {ko} alone can be reset by {goi}, so that the referent may be one self or the ones for whom one is a spokesperson, or one's auditor(s) or any other specifiable group -- first second or third person, singular or plural, as we say in languages about which that can be said. Given the range of options open and the uncertainty about what these various forms mean (or even can mean) it seems pointless to be suggesting MORE forms for directive language at this time. |