[lojban] Re: semantic primes

[Alex Joseph Martini <alexjm@umich.edu>]

to de'i li 20 pi'e 3 pi'e 2006 la'e zoi gy. John E Clifford gy. ciska
toi

> I worry about this: it seems to say "in the actual frame of reference
> of someone who might be looking at the mountain" (but, ex hypothesi,
> is not), which would miss the point.  I think that moving the {da'i}
> out to scope the whole sentence works nicely: "the ball would be on
> the right of the tree for someone looking at the mountain (with all
> xorxes quite correct assumptions)." The other possibility would be to
> bury the {lo catlu be lo cmana} behind {tu'a} and leave the details to
> be worked out later.  Byt the way, is there a regular distinction
> between "on Billy's right" and "to the right of Billy"?
>
> [ li'o ]

In normal English usage, "on Billy's right" means 'on the same side of
Billy's body as Billy's right hand is'. "To the right of Billy" means
either Billy's or someone else's right side is being used for reference.
Here, the thing being referenced could be on the side with Billy's left
hand, but with the speaker's right hand, if the speaker and Billy are
facing one another. This second case is inherently ambiguous without the
visual context that we would normally have when speaking.

mu'omi'e .aleks.


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