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[lojban] Re: A (rather long) discussion of {all}
On 5/28/06, Alex Martini <alexjm@umich.edu> wrote:
[ li'o ]
> Indeed. It's a suggestion: have a word that facilitates what you'd
> like. {loicu} seems a bit long. Since {lu'o} seems redundant, perhaps
> its meaning could be altered?
As far as I know, loi and lei are a contraction of lu'olo and lu'olo
respectively. I'm basing this on http://ptolemy.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis/
lojbanbrochure/lessons/less4articles.html which reads
> lu'o le and lu'o lo are very useful concepts, even without
explicit numbers, and there are shorter ways of saying each
> when no number comes between them: lei and loi respectively.
This wouldn't be my interpretation of loi. I see little use in saying
"five groups of these three men..." - it barely makes sense to me.
Instead I would prefer:
{___ cu bevri lo pa pipno}
1 {pa loi ci nanmu} ...is a shortcut for
2 {lu'o pa lo ci nanmu} ...is a shortcut for
3 {ro lo pa gunma be pa lo ci nanmu}
or (1) and (2) may both be shortcuts for (3), instead of (1) being a
shortcut for (2).
4 {mu lu'o pa lo ci nanmu} may be the shortcut for
5 {ro lo mu gunma be pa lo ci nanmu} ~
but I see that of such limited use that it should rather just be
written as (5).
(3) is seems useless. One idea that I've brought up is that {lu'o}
might serve well as a transient 'together'ness, where it's applicable
for only that sumti place, and then treated as if it never existed.
This would allow something like
{ro lo muno tadni cu dasni lo mapku .ije lu'o ra sruri lo dinju}
"all of the 50 students wore hats, and together they surrounded the building"
to be written as
{lu'o ro lo muno tadni cu sruri lo dinju gi'e dasni lo mapku}
"ttogether, all of the 50 students surrounded the building, and they wore hats"
where "ttogether" is a transient together, which makes the "they"
refer to {ro lo muno tadni} and not what is implied by {lu'o ro lo
muno tadni}.
{ro loi muno tadni cu sruri lo dinju gi'e dasni lo mapku}
"all of the 50 students together surrounded the building, and they wore hats}
Here the 'togetherness' would not be transient (since {loi} is not
transient), as "they" would refer to {ro loi muno tadni} and the
meaning would be that the actual crowd is wearing a single hat
(perhaps some sort of extremely long chinese parade dragon, worn on
the heads of all the students).
This usage of {lu'o} is just an idea, I have no opinion on if it
should be the way it works.
Is this still true? I'm not quite up to speed on the xorlo changes
per the byfy yet.
[ li'o ]
> Yes, {loi X} would mean {lo gunma lo X}. It's on the sumti because
> that's where it should be. In English, it's "on the verb" because we
> want to refer to X as a noun phrase, even though it's not the
> 'highest' noun phrase, because this is convenient in so many cases:
{lo gunma lo X} can't replace {loi X} because the former is two sumti
and the latter is only one. {lo gunma be lo X} would work, but I
Yes, shoddy writing (and perhaps comprehension) on my part.
don's see why you would use this method when there is a basic grammar
word that does the same thing. It's similar to saying in English {I
past-tense eat} instead of just {I ate}.
Many (most?) grammar words are "shortcuts", and so they have expanded
forms. One very clear example of this is {gi'e}.
{mi taske gi'e tatpi}
"I'm thirsty and tired"
is a shortcut for (hopefully I word this properly)
{mi taske ije mi tatpi}
"I'm thirsty and I'm tired"
The expanded form of {loi}, according to LFB, is {lu'o lo}, and so on.
When you say "there is a basic grammar word that does the same thing",
you're referring to a word that is a shortcut. When I give the
expanded form, I'm not advocating that we use it over the shortcut,
rather I'm defining what that shortcut stands for.
The only case I would see
this in is if you specifically want to say that it is a group, made
up of members, instead of just members who are abstractly grouped.
Abstractly grouped? There's nothing abstract about recognizing a
"crowd" or "mob" or "swarm" or "throng" or "horde" of people, and (for
example) seeing that the crowd surrounds a building -- if that's what
you're getting at.
While the baseline *has* been unfrozen, it would really be helpful
for beginners (myself included) if we didn't take the whole language
apart again and redefine everything. So, it is probably better spent
time to understand exactly how things work now then to speculate on
how they aught to work.
The problem is that they don't work now (at the end of my last
response, two critical problems with the way that inner {ro} is
handled by the current interpretation of Lojban are outlined).
Major changes like xorlo not yet being reflected in Lojbanic
literature is the greatest concern for one who dislikes having things
redefined in the midst of learning about them.
The interpretations that I offer are much easier for a beginner to
grasp than what is available, since they are a more accurate
reflection of what is really going on when we speak (I wouldn't be
arguing them if I thought otherwise).
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