Re: [lojban] mind map of lojban terms

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Nov 13, 2010 at 12:52 PM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
>  As usual, the problem seems to circle around the core.  A bridi is a
> predicate, therefore  a word or phrase.  A selbri is then the abstract entity, a
> relation, to which the bridi refers (or, maybe. means).

"bridi" is used in two different ways, which we may call syntactic and
semantic.

(1) The syntactic use is:

lu mi citka lo cakla li'u bridi zo citka zo mi ce'o lu lo cakla li'u
"mi citka lo cakla" is a bridi with selbri "citka" and argument
sequence {"mi", "lo cakla"}.

(2) The semantic use is:

lo du'u mi citka lo cakla cu bridi lo ka ce'u citka ce'u kei mi ce'o lo cakla
That I eat chocolate predicates that the eating relationship exists
between me and the chocolate.

The most common one is (1), a bridi is a text that consists of one
part called the selbri and several other parts called (together) the
terbri. Sometimes you get a mix of the syntactic and semantic
readings, but I don't think that makes much sense. The most often used
of the three slots is "selbri", which almost always refers to a type
of phrase. Examples of selbri being the texts "citka", "na citka",
"go'i", "ci moi", "me la .djan.", etc.

> A sumti is then a
> object which is involved in the selbri relation, a relatum.

"sumti" is somewhat more complicated than "bridi", because it's place
structure makes little sense compared to the way it is used. As used,
a sumti is a phrase that can be used as one of the components in the
terbri sequence. So examples of sumti are "mi", "lo cakla", "lo nu
klama", etc. This has nothing to do with the official definition of
"sumti", which requires a se sumti and a te sumti.

If we were to ignore the usage, based on the place structure we could
again have a syntactic and a semantic reading.

(1) Syntactic use of "sumti":

  lu lo cakla li'u cu sumti zo citka li re
  "lo cakla" is the second argument of "citka".

But what does that even mean? When, where is that true? Just in my
example above, or is it some kind of universal truth? It's just
nonsense.

(2) Semantic use of "sumti":

  lo cakla cu sumti lo ka ce'u citka ce'u kei li re
  "Chocolate is what's eaten."

Again, pretty nonsensical.

So I really have no clue what "sumti" is supposed to mean as defined.
I know how it is used: "x1 is a phrase that can be used to fill an
argument place". "se sumti" and "te sumti" are never used.

> A brivla is a word that can serve as a bridi.

True, but not a definition. "go'i" is also a word that can serve as a
bridi, but it is not a brivla. A brivla is a morphological type of
word, one that ends in a vowel and has penultimate stress and certain
other restrictions that would be tedious to list here. There are three
kinds of brivla: gismu, lujvo and fu'ivla, which are also
morphological sub-classes.

> The definition of 'tanru' is then suspect since it
> groups words (brivla) to form not a phrase (bridi) but a relation (selbri).

Again, the actual use of "tanru" is only concerned with the purely
syntactic sense. A group of brivla is one kind of tanru, but there are
others. For example "ci moi me ko'a" is a tanru but there are no
brivla in it. The seltau is the cmavo phrase "ci moi" and the tertau
is the cmavo phrase "me ko'a".

>  Similarly, a gadri is said to transform a selbri, a relation, into a sumti, a
> relatum.

That makes sense with the purely syntactic reading. "lo ... [ku]"
transforms the the selbri "cakla" into the sumti "lo cakla [ku]".

> Further, a cmevla is said to be  a word usable as a name ; but every
> word is usable as a name, to this not quite what is wanted.

A cmevla is a morphological word, defined by its ending in a consonant.

It is most often used as a name, but that is not its definition.

> And cmene is said
> to be a way of referring, rather than something that refers in a certain way.

Right, a cmene is a word or group of words used to refer in a certain way.

>  Sorting all this out seems a tedious task but maybe necessary, since I think
> all of the usages mentioned here actually occur from time to time in the
> literature.

Some day it may be sorted out, or maybe not.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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