[lojban] Re: Why's there no ka abstraction for nelci?

["Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 5/27/08, nam <eldrikdo@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I was wondering why no ka abstraction for nelci exists.

There aren't really any answers to "why" questions about
place structures. Many place structures were inherited
directly from Loglan and many were modified, but there wasn't
usually any systematic treatment.

> {mi nelci do le ka melbi}
>
> {mi nelci le skina le ka cinri pluja}

Those are in fact grammatical, and more or less equivalent to:

{mi nelci do do'e le ka melbi}

{mi nelci le skina do'e le ka cinri pluja}

It is always possible to add sumti in undefined places, and the
meaning in this case would probably be understood just as you
want it (at least I can't think of any other interpretation).

> It's nelci's similarity to cnino making me think it would be be nice to have a
> ka x3 for nelci.

I would say {pluka} is more similar to {cnino}, because of the order
object-observer. {mansa}, {melbi}, {trina} are other similar examples.
The x3 properties in these are properties of the x1, while for {nelci}
it would be a property of the x2.

In general, I think it would be preferrable to have less places defined
rather than more. For example, using:

{le skina cu pluka mi lo ka cinri pluja}

is somewhat awkward because of that "under conditions" place
defined for {pluka}. Why {pluka} has an "under conditions x3" place
rather than a "because of property x3" place is another of those
unanswerable questions.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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