[lojban] Re: Help in examples ...

[Pierre Abbat <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On Friday 22 October 2004 09:34, riderofgiraffes wrote:
> I've been trying to explain to someone why it is when discussing
> lojban that "standard" linguistic terms such as "noun", "complex noun
> phrase" and "verb", etc., don't suffice.
>
> I've pointed out that the clarity and unity provided by a single
> concept of "predicate with arguments" makes it simpler, and that
> introducing "noun", "verb", etc. simply makes the situation more
> complex, but it doesn't work with her mindset.
>
> Please can someone provide me with a few examples where a sumti
> cannot be passed of as "just a complex sort of noun"?

A sumti is an argument of a predicate, according to the gimste. A phrase which 
has the same internal grammar as a sumti but is the object of {pe} (which is 
not a preposition or a case marker) is not a sumti, because the pe-phrase 
modifies a sumti, not a selbri. That's not an example of a sumti which isn't 
a complex sort of noun, but an example of the inverse.

Sumti are much more often made from verbs than nouns, so it sounds a bit funny 
to call them noun phrases.

phma
-- 
li ze te'a ci vu'u ci bi'e te'a mu du
li ci su'i ze te'a mu bi'e vu'u ci