[lojban] Tanru automatically forming

[Ian Johnson <blindbravado@gmail.com>]

I know this is vastly too fundamental to be changed at this stage of the language's development, but why do tanru automatically form? Presumably the more common a construction is, the fewer cmavo it should take to say it. (This isn't a direct correlation, though; for example, NU constructions are very common, but by their nature there is probably no way to avoid having some cmavo to deal with them.) And certainly {lo gerku cu klama} is more common than {lo gerku klama cu bajra}. Why wasn't it decided in the ancient (Loglan?) days to have tanru form only with a cmavo? To clarify, suppose the cmavo were {ja'ei}* for the default grouping ({ke} and friends would still work the same way without needing {ja'ei}). Then {lo gerku klama} would be "the dog goes" while {lo gerku ja'ei klama bajra} would be "the dog-kind-of-goer runs". Isn't this a bit more sensible than what is established now?

*Certainly in an actual situation like this, this cmavo would be a CV, since it would be pretty common. I'm fairly sure there are no CVs to spare now, though, so it would've been confusing to use one.

mu'o mi'e .latros.

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.