Re: Problem perhaps

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

MF> There isn't exactly a different sort of challenge that you've missed, it's
MF> just my warped perception of the world :-)  What I was trying to say was
MF> that a message in a foreign language acts as a challenge to me to reply
MF> similarly, i.e. the message itself (and crucially, not the sender) is
MF> issuing me a challenge... It's coming up to me, slapping me round the face
MF> and saying "Hah! I bet you can't deal with me!"  This was why I decided to
MF> use {talsa} even though the gismu list restricts it to people.

Well, metaphorical extension of animate properties to inanimate objects is
no more forbidden in Lojban than it is in any other language.  Just as long
as you remember that you are being somewhat metaphorical here (in writing
I might be inclined to encourage an explicit figurative cmavo - pe'a I think
it is).

[Side note - we had our own little metaphorical extension crop up at last
weeks Lojban conversation session here.  I was reminding someone of their
intent to download the reference grammar papers, which they hadn't done.
Sylvia then expressed the observative "zungi litru"
"guilt traveller" - one who takes a "guilt trip", that is; zo'o
It seemed really malglico at first, but if one is willing to presume that
not all motions need be physical, a guilt trip is indeed a travelling - an
emotional trvelling via route the state of feeling guilty, propelled by the
person giving the guilt trip.

Not everything malglico need necessarily be xlali (or even mabla?)
]

MF> This is a neat construction - unfortunately the only reference to this use
MF> of {pa'a} that I can find is in the latest cmavo list, which just gives:
MF>
MF>  pa'aku ...
MF>  explicitly marks respective use as in "THEY read THEIR (respective)
MF> books"
MF>
MF> Where did this usage come from?  Since the reference grammar doesn't
MF> explain it, could you do so in a bit more detail (and perhaps incorporate
MF> the explanation into the reference grammar).

Well, pa'a is the BAI operator expressing parallelism.  The thing tagged
with the pa'a (only implied in the case of the ellipsis pa'aku) is something
which operates in parallel with the sumti being modified.

I'll leave it to John to decide whether and where it should go into the
reference grammar.  I have for the most part left it alone - I will do a review
at some later point, but I can;t get the dictionary done if I take on even one
more task these days.

lojbab