[lojban] Re: [lojban-beginners] Re: Greetings, and commands

[Robin Lee Powell <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On Sun, Feb 02, 2003 at 03:39:26AM -0500, Rob Speer wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 11:12:55AM -0800, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> > When used as a *command*, a suggestion seems to me to be obviously
> > more polite by default than a statement of obligation.  Not so in
> > other cases, of course.
> 
> True; I suppose I went off on the wrong tangent of my rant.
> 
> The thing here is that I don't believe that a sentence with {e'u} but
> not {ko} is any sort of command at all.

It's not; it's a suggestion.  I suppose one could consider it a very
weak command.  However, IIRC, the examples all had ko in them.

> That does mean that I consider {ei} to be somewhat special, and this
> is only because it fills a void in the language - turning a sentence
> into a command without using a pronoun to do it. I don't like {ei}
> commands very much, but we need them.

We do?

> Then again, there are alternatives. {do'e ko} seems like it could do
> the trick (making "ko" take effect without filling a sumti place) in
> general. To save a syllable, {fai ko} seems to do the same thing by
> somewhat cheating. If the listener can actually be expected to do
> something to fulfill the command, there's also {bai ko}.

<nod>

-Robin

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