Re: [lojban] mlana

["Jorge Llambias" <jjllambias@hotmail.com>]

> From: "Robert J. Chassell" <bob@RATTLESNAKE.COM>
> If I understand my anthropology and metaphorical reasoning correctly,
> in Anglophone culture, indeed, in the cultures of all Indo European
> language speakers, the side of an object that is conventionally its
> `front' is its `face'.  If an object is symmetrical in a manner that
> produces two or more possible `faces', like a cube, then the side that
> I can see is its face.

Lojban gets that meaning backwards with {mi} in the reference
place: {zunle le kubli mi} is "to the left of the cube as it
faces me", which we would say in English as "to the right of the
cube". {zunle le kubli le bolci} is "left of the cube as it faces
the ball", which is more neutral.

For objects that already have an inherent front, the x3 is not
really a reference frame, but just additional information
about the orientation of x2. If I say {zunle la djan mi}
it means "to the left of John, who happens to be facing me". The
fact that John faces me does not really add anything to the
location of x1.

So, the Lojban system is odd, at least with respect to what we
expect in English and other languages. But I'm still not sure
what to do with x3 of {mlana}. What has the direction in which
x1 is facing got to do with anything, if that is what x3 is?

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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