RE: [lojban] The art of place structure. (And how to destroy it.)

["Craig" <ragnarok@pobox.com>]

> I recently came across la lojban. due to Eric S. Raymond (the author
>of 'The Jargon File') and his paper on using J.R.R. Tolkien's Tengwar
>character set for Lojban. I've been working on learning it, and have
>recently completed Chapter 3 of 'Lojban for Beginner's' by Robin
>Turner and Nick Nicholas, whereupon I came to the lojban

Welcome.

>would have to say 'mi klama le sorcu fu karce', and if I then, as an

It would be "fu lo karce". Gadri were the last common thing I learned to use
properly; the simple rule is that all sumti need them even if the English
doesn't.

>finish that with 'fi zo'e zo'e'. I am familiar with 'se' and related,
>which switch x1 and xn, but is there a way to alter the place
>structure of 'klama' to mean 'x1 goes to x2 by means x3 from x4 via
>route x5'?

Multiple SE. For example, se te se swaps x2 and x3. Watch:

ko'a ko'e ko'i ko'o ko'u broda
ko'e ko'a ko'i ko'o ko'u se broda
ko'i ko'a ko'e ko'o ko'u te se broda
ko'a ko'i ko'e ko'o ko'u se te se broda

Very messy. I stick with FA if I need afterthought, and remember that
although the distributions aren't a perfect match for the order they aren't
bad - the first two are usually right, and the rest aren't used all that
much.

>Apologies in advance for excessive wordiness and anything 'maglico'
>in this post.

Oh, there's absolutely nothing to worry about. First of all, your post was
free from anything other than simple newbiness (you'll grow out of that
pretty quick), and secondly, despite occasional reports to the contrary,
when you're new enough that it happens more than a very teeny bit, we really
won't mind malglico. It is only an issue when we are getting really serious
and discussing how things 'ought' to be.