Re: [lojban] footnotes, etc?

It seems like there are many ways to do this, some of which use only standard lojban, and a few others which require experimental cmavo. I'd strongly prefer to see the first variety be used, naturally.

1) Works only after a sumti. [ko'a nesa'a zo'e pe li xo'e], where xo'e is the number of the footnote/endnote. Replacing [zo'e] with something more precise would allow for disambiguation in that regard. For "footnote" in particular, I'd suggest [ko'a nesa'a lo papri fanmo notci pe li xo'e]. The use of [sa'a] is perhaps optional.

2) Works anywhere. Wrap the following in a to/to'i...toi: [e'u catlu zo'e pe li xo'e], where zo'e and xo'e are replaced as in the previous solution. This solution is arguably less good than #1, as when using a to...toi, I don't think that it's good practice to refer to the surrounding text. Of course, using to'i...toi is perhaps better.

3) Requires a new cmavo and works only after sumti. Let xi'i be a cmavo of XI, meaning "see footnote".

4) Requires a new cmavo and works everywhere. Let mai'a be a cmavo of MAI, meaning "see footnote".

5) Requires a new cmavo, uses nonstandard Lojban, and works everywhere. Let xi'i be a cmavo of XI and let XI equate to a free modifier.

These are the solutions that I can think of; there are certainly more. Also, [xi'i] and [mai'a] are completely made up, they aren't in jvovlaste or known by any lojbanists, unless of course someone else has been using one or the other or both for some other purpose, in which case I apologise.

As for the text of the footnotes, there are many possibilities again. Each footnote could be individually wrapped in a TO...toi, or the full text of the footnotes could be wrapped in a single parenthetical remark. Also, one could also simply use [ni'o]...[no'i] for the text of the footnotes. This would be more inline with the solutions not involving wrapping the footnote number in a parenthetical remark, as I believe that it is bad to refer to the contents of a parenthetical remark from within the main text. (IIRC, the CLL says not to do so as well.) I suggest using [mai] to mark the number being used for the following text until another [mai] is reached. If [mai] is already being used in the main text and confusion might result from using regular [mai], perhaps the footnotes could all be negative numbers, in order to ensure that there's no confusion between a reference to a footnote and a reference to another section. Also, if [mai] is being used in a situation where the text of a footnote contains a reference to a footnote, it would become impossible to use subscripting as suggested below. In that case, I would suggest using a zo'u-and-tu'e..tu'u system like so: {i lo papri fanmo notci pe li pa xi re zo'u tu'e i li'o tu'u}. Using [ni'o] for each new footnote might be a good idea as well, but this makes wrapping the whole footnote section in [ni'o]...[no'i] more confusing.

As for footnotes within footnotes, (footnoteception? :P ) it is possible to use subscripting to disambiguate, using any of the solutions mentioned above, except the solutions involving [mai], as the number preceding [mai] cannot be subscripted. [mai] itself may not be subscripted either, unless the author adheres to XI-as-a-free-modifier (which is nonstandard Lojban).

i ma se jinvi
mu'o mi'e la tsani

On 8 March 2012 19:34, Jonathan Jones <eyeonus@gmail.com> wrote:

Hey! .skaryzgik. is back! Hoorah!

Regarding your question, I'm pretty sure we have header and footer cmavo, but I don't know what they are nor have the time currently to look them up. Hopefully .xorxes. or Pierre or Robin can provide better information on that.

On Thu, Mar 8, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Marjorie Scherf <skaryzgik@gmail.com> wrote:
coi rodo

So, I've been reading a lot of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series in the last week or so, which, those if any of you who are familiar with these books may be aware, are full of footnotes. A little asterisk at the end, or in the middle, of a sentence, corresponding to one at the bottom of the page, which explains the thing immediately preceding the one above, or tells some related story. Sometimes even the footnotes have footnotes. And, since these books are also reminding me of several things I want to use lojban for, the various strands of thought tangled together and I wondered how lojban would accomplish something similar. Would we merely use parentheticals, or would something else be more appropriate?

mu'omi'e la .jdakrat.skaryzgik.

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