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Re: [lojban] Historian: what's up with directional words?
Robin Lee Powell wrote:
The direction words (pritu, zunle, trixe, etc) are phrased very
strangely:
zunle = x1 is to the left/left-hand side of x2 which faces/in-frame-of-reference x3.
What does "which faces" mean? It seems to imply that x2 must have a
natural facing/front, which is bad. Why do we even care about
facing in this contexnt?
Pretend that you are multilaterally symmetrical, and that you have no
front. Identify what is to your left. Now rotate yourself 180 degrees,
and what is "to your left" is what used to be "to your right". Thus
your orientation/facing/frame of reference, is essential to defining
what "to your left" means.
{mlana} additionally bothers me because you can't say *which* side
something is on with {mlana}, and additionally discussing facing
seems even more bizarre, but at least it gets its own place:
x1 is to the side of/lateral to x2 and facing x3 from point of view/in-frame-of-reference x4
which is an improvement.
Just wondering what the plan was here.
The definition of mlana was intended to cover the case where all that is
important is that it is to the side rather than directly in front of you
(or behind you), without worrying about left and right, and perhaps
allowing for the possibility of being "to the side" in the 3rd dimension
as well (ie above/below) in a gravityless situation where up and down
are ambiguous.
If you have no definable orientation at all (i.e no "front") then you
cannot have a "side" - or rather everything is to your "side", and
distance is all that matters (lamji, jibni, darno).
lojbab
--
Bob LeChevalier lojbab@lojban.org www.lojban.org
President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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