Re: [lojban] I'm sure I've missed it but, "ko" for "You and Me" ...

[tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com>]

On 24 March 2011 01:56, .arpis. <rpglover64+jbobau@gmail.com> wrote:
> {doi mi'o ko klama le xotli} - {doi} explicitly assigns {do} to be {mi'o},
> so {ko} commands the speaker and the listener to go to the hotel; similarly
> {ma'a} for the entire group. (gejyspa posted this before I finished my
> reply)

I'm not sure that {doi} *explicitly assigns* {do} to anything. {do}
excludes all non-{do} KOhA3 except {ko}, so it can't really be turned
into or substitute for {mi'o}. {do} refers only to the listener, and
{mi'o} refers to both the listener and the speaker; these cmavo are
semantically distinct by definition. If a command or suggestion is
intended for the listener *and* the speaker, more than {do} are to be
involved in the first place. What's at stake is the indexicality not
of {do} but of that which is commanded or suggested to be the agent of
a particular action or event (e.g. going to the hotel).

The fundamental linguistic element of a command or suggestion is "mood":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood
In Lojban, this is most expressible through UI and COI. Lojban has
this advantage in expressing a mood in a more grammatically distinct
and isomorphic manner than in many other languages. The English
sequence of words "you do this" can be indicative or interrogative or
jussive / imperative or something else, depending on non-isomorphic
elements such as intonation, punctuation, etc., whereas Lojban can
lexically differentiate them with {ju'a}, {xu}, {a'o}, {e'i}, and so
on.

{ko} is an oddball -- a sumti charged with some mood. According to
BPFK, it's "an imperative pro-sumti for "you," the person or people
that the speaker is addressing":
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/BPFK+Section%3A+Personal+Pro-sumti
On top of being imperative more than suggestive in its function, {ko}
by definition excludes non-{do}, so it doesn't appear useful in a
less-than-imperative intended-for-you-and-me utterance such as "Let's
go to the hotel". (For that, we can resort to the more clear-cut and
thus arguably more Lojbanic options such as {e'u mi'o klama le
xotli}.)


On 24 March 2011 01:43, Jonathan Jones <eyeonus@gmail.com> wrote:
> ko is not inherently singular, in the same way that English "you" isn't. (In
> the old days, "you" was plural, and "thou" was singular, but "thou" fell out
> of use.
>
> None of the pro-sumti are inherently singular or plural. do is "the
> listener(s)", mi is "the speaker(s)", etc.

True. What differentiates {do} from {mi'o}, for instance, isn't the
number of entities but the combination of different sorts of entities.
{do} excludes "the speaker (1st person)" & "others (3rd person)" and
thus differs also from {mi'o}, {do'o}, etc.


mu'o

-- 
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.