Re: more gismu comments from Jorge

[jorge@phyast.pitt.edu]

> >  Why does {xanka} have
> >"under conditions" but {gleki} doesn't?
>
> Perhaps my understanding of happiness (which became embedded in Lojban)
> is that it can be unconditional, whereas anxiety is conditional.

So you can be a happy person but not an anxious person?

Everything can be conditional, that's what {va'o} is for, isn't it?

> >Why does {curmi} have "under conditions" but not {gasnu}?
>
> curmi: like xanka, the conditions tend to relate to the x1's state of mind,
> while conditions might also be found inside the sumti clause being permitted,
> that are unrelated to the state of mind.
>
> Why should gasnu?  You either ARE an agent, or you are NOT.  I don't see
> much basis for this comparison.

You could just as well say that you either LET something happen, or you
do NOT. Why is your state of mind important when you let something fall,
but not when you make it fall?

> >Why does {cpedu} have "in manner" but {dunda} doesn't?
>
> One is a predominantly physical action - and it is the action that makes
> it "dunda".  "cpedu" involves a mental state on the part of the
> requestor, being communicated to the recipient.  It thus is far more
> akin to cusku, in that the medium of requesting (which need not be
> linguistic) has significant effect on whether the request is understood
> as such.

The definition suggests that dunda is not necessarily a physical action.
In any case, I don't see why the fact that cpedu involves a mental state
should require a manner place. Anyway, I don't think I'll convince you.

> Again, it seems like you are comparing plise and narju (a contrast that
> makes much more sense in Lojban than in English, since narju is not
> necessarily a fruit) %^)

Even without comparing with anything, all the "manner" places seem
like clumsy appendices to the basic concept, and make learning gismu
more difficult.

> Later in the thread, Dylan:
> >Do you think we could organize a rebellion :-)?  (No, I'm not really
> >proposing another split.  I am half-seriously contemplating listing my
> >own versions of various gismu with texts I write.)
>
> Not funny.  If people do not accept the language standard before it is
> promulgated, it will probably never be promulgated. i.e.  IFF I publish
> a dictionary, then at the time of publishing and for a while thereafter,
> there will be a baseline.  Only when the community is large enough and
> stable enough (which will probably not happen before there is a
> dictionary) will it be possible to trust natural linguistic processes.

I don't know about that. I know from now that I won't like some things
that will very likely appear in the dictionary, e.g if you say that
{tcesau} means "ancient" instead of "intimate". Everybody will hate some
parts of the dictionary, and the parts that everybody agrees to hate will
remain only in the dictionary and never be used. In the case of Lojban,
what probably will tend to remain more "standard" is the grammar, but
the meanings of gismu and its places probably will shift somewhat once
people start learning them and not looking them up.

Jorge