Pro-sumti/pro-bridi paper, draft 1.1

[(Mark E. Shoulson) <shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu> id AA00769; Wed, 17 Mar 93 09:16:15 -0500]

On serious notes:

I think you should stress a little more that "we" can also be translated to
Lojban {mi}.  People shouldn't think that {mi} is specific in number, and
that point is only made in passing.  Basically, {mi} refers to all the
people the immediate speaker(s) is/are speaking for, thus a jury foreman
would refer to the jury as {mi}, etc.  Other examples should be brought in;
a plural {mi} should be common.

Someday we'll have to play with some really baroque uses of {ko}; maybe put
some in.  A language that allows the imperativity of a sentence to be
expressed way down deep in a sentence has got to be interesting (e.g. {mi
viska le nanmu poi prami ko}: "be such that I see the man that loves you!",
not quite a translation of "show me the man that loves you", but a slightly
different command).  Also recall the discussion we had way back when about
{mi cusku ledu'u ko sidju mi}, which had been used as "I ask you to help
me" when it really should translate to "Be such that I ask you to help me,"
or "make me ask you for help", to put it colloquially.  That should be
mentioned.

Welsh has an interesting set of place-adverbs that correspond very well to
the ti-series.  "Yma" means "here", "yna" is "there", implying someplace
that can be pointed to, "acw" is "over yonder", also someplace visible, but
far away, and idiomatically used to refer to "our house".  There's also
"yno", meaning "there", but someplace that is out of sight in time or space
(e.g. as in "He was there when the Declaration of Independence was signed",
even though the site of such signing might be within eyeshot.)  These have
developed demonstratives, similar to French "voici/voila": dyma/dyna/dacw
here is/there is/yonder is. (contractions of "Gwel di yma/yna/acw": "see
thou here/there/yonder")

Do you mean to say that in 16th century English "this" referred to medium
distance and "yon" was far away, or that "that" was medium distance and
"yon" was far away?  You say the former, which doesn't make much sense, but
I don't know.

>Most references in speech are to the past (what has already been said),
>and so "di'e", "de'e", and "da'e" are more useful in writing:

But "di'e" is a future reference!  I know that "di'e" is indeed useful in
writing, but the sentence appears to contradict itself.

>6.15)   na nei
>
>and how does it differ from
>
>6.16)   dei jitfa
>        This-utterance is-false?

OK, I give up.  Put an answer-key at the bottom!

Also mention constructions like {vo'apedi'u} as alternatives to {lego'i}.

Colin recently saw me on IRC and asked "do mo", which I took as a question
"who are you?" and not "how are you?"  I guess "ma poi prenu du do" or
something would be better for "who are you"?

~mark