[lojban] Missing BAI conversion

["Mark E. Shoulson" <mark@kli.org>]

Something that occurred to me at LogFest over the weekend:


Robin was recounting his "tale of woe," his problems in getting out to 
Philadelphia.  In Lojban: this was to be a demonstration of the 
language, after all.  At one point he was using a gismu with some SE in 
front of it, but explained "I don't remember the place-structure of this 
one; but you know what I mean."  Which of course is perfectly reasonable 
for colloquial speech.  We really shouldn't feel we have to remember all 
the place-structures right when we're talking to people who can work out 
from context what makes sense.  This, therefore, is a very useful lesson 
to be remembered: use {do'e}.  If you don't remember which place of the 
gismu what you want is, but you know it's there, just flag it with the 
nonspecific BAI, do'e, since BAIs also indicate places of the 
predication.  And if it's a conversion you need, as in "le SE broda" but 
you don't know which SE, you use "le jaido'e broda."


This is an important trick to know.


It occurs to me, though, that there is (at least) one place where you 
can't really use this to help.  Let's say I want to add a BAI phrase, 
and I know it's *some* place of (say) va'u, but I can't remember which 
one.  That is, I should be saying "SE va'u da..." for some SE.  The 
grammar doesn't allow "*jaido'e va'u da" and likely can't/shouldn't.  
But it is what, in some sense, we would want.  "fi'o jai do'e xamgu da" 
is legal, but a mouthful.  Then again, maybe if you're so messed up, you 
shouldn't be using the "shorthand" of BAI anyway.


I don't think this is important enough even to contemplate trying to 
"fix," but it is something to think about.  And using {do'e} is a trick 
worth remembering.


~mark



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