[lojban] Re: The New Method

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Dec 18, 2009 at 7:21 PM, Adam D. Lopresto <adam@pubcrawler.org> wrote:
>
> I guess I hadn't thought of {ca klama} as a selbri.

I'm probably very influenced by the use in the formal grammars, where
the tag is clearly a part of the construction called "selbri".

> I had considered it as a
> selbri tcita ({ca}) attached to a selbri ({klama}).  But it's possible that
> was I was thinking of as selbri is more what has been called "tanru unit",
> but that seems even more complicated.

"tanru-unit" is what it is called in the formal grammar, but of course
such things need not be part of any tanru, so that name is also weird.
Also, "broda je brode" and "broda co brode" are selbri but not
tanru-units for the formal grammar.


> Teaching the
> terminators as an actual part of the construct, which can in some cases be
> omitted if doing so doesn't cause a different parse, does seem to produce
> much
> better results than teaching them as something extra that needs to be added
> at odd times.

Yes, definitely. That's how they are presented in CLL, and that's how
they were taught in the original lessons by lojbab. I think it was
Lojban for Beginners that deviated from that.

> It might be possible to teach elidability right after {lo ... ku}, but hold
> off on {cu} until considerably later (after {NU ... kei}, for instance).

I don't see the advantage of holding off on "cu". Forgetting "cu" is
probably the most common mistake that beginners make. I think the best
way to present terminators is to write sentences initially as "lo
mlatu [ku] cu blabi [vau]", showing both that the terminator is there,
and that it is elidable. Or maybe I just like that method because
that's how they were taught to me, and it always seemed very clear.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org
with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if
you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.