[lojban] Re: describing people

[Invent Yourself <xod@thestonecutters.net>]

On Fri, 18 Jul 2003, Robin Turner wrote:

> John Cowan wrote:
> > Craig scripsit:
> >
> >
> >>How do you ask what someone looks like? I don't want the answer to be "a
> >>fish" but rather a description of the person's appearance.
> >
> >
> > I first thought of "ko'a simlu ma", but "ko'a selski fo ma" would be
> > more precise.
> >
> "ko'a simlu ma" would indeed invite the answer "lo finpe".
>
> ta'o k'ie doi kreig. ...
>
> be careful about "ko'a" - it's very tempting to use it to translate
> he/she/it, and this is _wrong_. "ko'a" should be one of the rarer
> pro-sumti, since you would only use it if you felt it useful to
> specifically assign a pro-sumti to a person or thing.  Given that you're
> writing a story KO'A may be appropriate, but I've seen too many cases
> where people use "ko'a" when they really want "ti" or "ri".



Why not allow ko'a to be defined positionally, as da is?



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