Re: ti preti lojban

["Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@lojban.org>]

At 06:27 PM 3/18/99 -0500, Kevin Turner wrote:
>From: Kevin Turner <Kevin.Turner@oberlin.edu>
>Is there any constistancy of sumti order for gismu?  The first place is
>seems very regular (as the-thing-which-is-to-be-related), but beyond
>that...  For example tavla and dunda.  Tavla has x2 being the recipient
>of the talking while x3 is the thing which is being talked about, while
>dunda has x3 being the recipient of the giving while x2 is the thing
>which is given.

Robin Turner has given a pretty good answer.  The order of places was
arbitrary but determined by our perception of what was most likely to be
included in a sentence.  Then in later passes, we tended to look for places
where ordering was inconsistent among words in similar semantic domains,
and try to make them consistent.

So far as I know, no one tries to actually memorize place structures.  You
learn them by using them, and the patterns tend to grow on you.

>Also, it seems to be common to for gismu definitions to have a "made of
>material" simtu tacked on at the end, but this is not universal.  I can
>specify the material for a bottle by supplying the third sumti to botpi,
>but it seems to me such a sumti would be frequently ellipsed, thus
>making it difficult to remeber if it was defined.
>
>In contrast, another method is required to say "Adobe, the car that's
>made out of clay," as karce has no such material-sumti place defined.
>So I imagine there is a selbri for "x1 is constructed of material x2"...
>But I am curious, what was the rationale for occasionally defining these
>"made of" placements?

I believe we left "material" places out where 1) there is a likelihood that
more than one kind of material would be used and 2) the material is not
generally essential to the nature of the thing.  The material that a bottle
is made of is quite frequently vital to its serving its function, with
different materials leading to different functions in terms of the contents
x2 place.  So far as I know, cars used as cars per se are all made of metal
and/or plastic in mixed amounts, and changing the material does not tend to
affect the nature of car-ness.
  
>My bridi of the day:  I had to interrupt my afternoon's study of lojban
>to go to my psychology class, of which today's topic was language.  On
>my way there, I discovered that I did not yet have the vocabulary to say
>"the class of mind-study," but I could probably say that I was going to
>"the one who talks about small heads".  I came up with
>
>mi klama le te le stedu cpana ku tavla ku
>
>Is this correct?

It doesn't parse.  Perhaps you wanted 

mi klama le le stedu cpana ku te tavla ku

I go to the head-upon-ones' talked-about-thing
I go to the thing the one who stood on his head was talking about?

I see "small head" and which would be cmalu stedu or studu cmalu, and guess
that you are referring malglico to "shrinks", i.e. psychiatrists, and then
grabbed cpana instead of cmalu accidentally.

mi klama le le stedu cmalu ku te tavla ku

I go to the thing the head-small one talked about.

And I get the idea for something that barring the malglico metaphor might
get the point across:

mi klama le cmalu stedu te tavla nu tavla [ku]
I go to the small-head-subject event-of-talking.
I go to where someone is talking about "small-heads".

But Robin's solution is certainly better.

lojbab