Pro-sumti/pro-bridi paper, draft 1.1

[(Mark E. Shoulson) <shoulson@ctr.columbia.edu> id AA06918; Thu, 18 Mar 93 14:18:39 -0500]

>From: cowan@snark.thyrsus.com (John Cowan)
>Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 14:36:59 -0500 (EST)

>la mark. clsn. cusku di'e

>> 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.

>I don't remember this discussion, and it brings up a disturbing consideration.
>I agree that "mi cusku le du'u ko sidju mi" means "Make me ask you for help",
>but then what >is< the translation of "I ask you to help me"?  It looks like
>we have a distinction between direct and indirect commands to parallel the
>one between direct and indirect questions.  And if questions and commands,
>why not any UI?  Seems like the whole vexed question may need some rethinking.

The discussions was about someone's translation of some poetic text or
another... I think I have it somewhere.  I don't quite understand what
question you're referring to, and what you mean by distinctions between
indirect and direct questions/commands/UIs/whatever.  What do you mean?

>[Welsh material omitted]

>Private inquiry:  just what do all those Welsh vowels mean?  I don't have
>access to a decent (read IPA) description of them.  Are there really 7
>vowel phonemes?

I'll answer as best as I can, but bear in mind that I'm a beginnger at this
Welsh stuff and my sources are all about Modern Welsh as she is spoke, so
there are likely more distinctions historically.

Welsh vowels: a e i o u w y.  All vowels may be short or long.  "s" is
basically a Lojban {a}, short or long.  "e" is a lojban {e}, i.e. epsilon,
when short, but more an IPA /e:/ when long.  "i" is lojban {i}/IPA /i:/ or
/i/.  It's sometimes used as a semivowel, /j/.  "o" is lojban {o}, IPA /o:/
or /o/.  Then it gets fun.

Short "u" is pronounced like "i", IPA /i/.  No, that's not a typo.  "Pump"
sounds like English "pimp", "punt" sounds like "pinn-t", etc.  Long "u" is
pronouced /i:/ in S. Wales, but more gutterally in N. Wales.  The symbol my
book has is /barred-i:/, but I'm not sure what sound that is.  Anyone?
Basically, *nowhere* is "u" sounded like /u/, more like /i/.  This is a
tricky thing for a foreigner to remember, I've found.  "Mul" sounds like
English "meal", "dau" sounds like English "die", etc.

"w" is pronounced like /u:/ or /u/, sometimes used as a semivowel /w/ or
even semiconsonantally, e.g. the common word-initials "gwl-" and "gwr-",
which are not considered separate syllables.  "y" has two sounds: clear and
obscure.  Clear "y" has pretty much the same sounds as "u": /i:/ or
/barred-i:/ when long and /i/ when short.  Obscure "y" is a schwa.  It can
be stressed when clear or obscure, though like all vowels cannot be long
when unstressed.  In the words I was using, the "y" is obscure.  The stress
supposedly falls on the penultimate, but listening to the tapes I've found
that not to be true in many cases, including "yma" and "yna", where it
sounds more like the stress is on the last syllable.  The stress isn't very
heavy anyway, so you could get away with it in either place.

Incidentally, I recall a discussion about a le'avla for Wales, and the
trouble caused by the prohibition against {y} in le'avla, since the Welsh
name for Wales is "Cymru" -- {KYMri} in lojban orthography.  Using a bit of
Lojbab's method of falling back on writing when sounds fail us, I'd stick
with {gugdrkimri/o}, since the "y" also makes the sound of "i", and in fact
may have during the course of the derivation of the word (I heard something
about how "Cymro"/Welshman comes from someone of the same "bro"/country,
thus implying something with "Cym-" or "Cyn-" that nasalized the "b", and
in almost all one-syllable words, "y" is clear.  But the derivation needn't
be true, of course).  OBTW, I made a tiny error: "dyma" comes from "Gwe^l
di yma", with a circumflex over the "e".

>It doesn't, but it's poorly worded.  I've expanded it.

>> >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!

>It's Evil, Truly Evil, and you should try to work out its meaning for
>yourselves.  Further deponent sayeth not.

Well, 6.15 looks kind of like an assertion "whatever I'm saying, the
opposite thereof", while 6.16 is a comment on itself.  Should it be
la'edei?  No, that's certainly wrong.  But should {jitfa} take a text as
its x1?

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

>Not I.  As I said to lojbab regarding the "re pai" controversy, I will not
>use these papers to document what I believe to be the Wrong Thing.  If
>people say "re pai" for 2*pi, or "vo'a pe di'u" for "le go'i ku", the
>language will not break, but I won't defend the usage in cold print.
>To me, "vo'a pe di'u" means "that part of the x1 sumti of the current
>bridi which pertains in some way to the previous sentence".

OK, I thought the other usage was accepted, I didn't realize there was
disagreement about it.

>or more cleverly with a vocative question:

>   doi ma

Ooh, I like that!

~mark