[lojban] Re: Missing BAI conversion

["Adam D. Lopresto" <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

{do'e} is indeed the handiest member of BAI.   I think both FA and SE can
take a subscript (for instance, for lujvo with more than five places), so
you might also be able to do something like that.   {le se xi tu'o broda}
instead of {le jai do'e broda}, and {se xi tu'o va'u da}.  Not sure if
{tu'o} is right there, but it could be handy.  In particular, {fa xi tu'o}
asserts that the place you're filling is one of the "real" places, whereas
{do'e} adds a new place (without telling you which place, or what predicate
it's from).


On Mon, 12 Dec 2005, Mark E. Shoulson wrote:

> Something that occurred to me at LogFest over the weekend:
>
>
> Robin was recounting his "tale of woe," his problems in getting out to 
> Philadelphia.  In Lojban: this was to be a demonstration of the language, 
> after all.  At one point he was using a gismu with some SE in front of it, 
> but explained "I don't remember the place-structure of this one; but you 
> know what I mean."  Which of course is perfectly reasonable for colloquial 
> speech.  We really shouldn't feel we have to remember all the 
> place-structures right when we're talking to people who can work out from 
> context what makes sense.  This, therefore, is a very useful lesson to be 
> remembered: use {do'e}.  If you don't remember which place of the gismu 
> what you want is, but you know it's there, just flag it with the 
> nonspecific BAI, do'e, since BAIs also indicate places of the predication. 
> And if it's a conversion you need, as in "le SE broda" but you don't know 
> which SE, you use "le jaido'e broda."
>
>
> This is an important trick to know.
>
>
> It occurs to me, though, that there is (at least) one place where you can't 
> really use this to help.  Let's say I want to add a BAI phrase, and I know 
> it's *some* place of (say) va'u, but I can't remember which one.  That is, 
> I should be saying "SE va'u da..." for some SE.  The grammar doesn't allow 
> "*jaido'e va'u da" and likely can't/shouldn't.  But it is what, in some 
> sense, we would want.  "fi'o jai do'e xamgu da" is legal, but a mouthful. 
> Then again, maybe if you're so messed up, you shouldn't be using the 
> "shorthand" of BAI anyway.
>
>
> I don't think this is important enough even to contemplate trying to "fix," 
> but it is something to think about.  And using {do'e} is a trick worth 
> remembering.
>
>
> ~mark
>
>
>
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--
Adam Lopresto
http://cec.wustl.edu/~adam/

Yet another brilliant mind ruined by higher education.


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