Re: [lojban] scalars and portion selbri

[Jacob Errington <nictytan@gmail.com>]

On 14 July 2012 14:05, djandus <jandew@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you for the thorough responses!
>
> On Friday, July 13, 2012 11:16:25 AM UTC-5, tsani wrote:
>>
>> #2 {mi klama jai fi'ucisi'e [lo mu'e klama]}
>
> {jai} confuses me still about 60% of the times I see it. Could you explain
> this usage a bit more?

Yep, I'm the number one jai freak, so I'm not surprised that this
might appear odd. If we look at #1, an event is in si'e1. We can reify
a sumti from it by means of {jai}, but in order to preserve, in a
certain sense, the selbri of the original abstraction, we stick it on
as a seltau to {jai PAsi'e}.

More abstractly but precisely, we must first consider the existence of
the fai-place created by means of {jai}. Then, if we apply the "tanru
rule" that I commonly use in order to construct "regular tanru" (yes,
I'm aware that tanru are blah blah blah irregular blah metaphor blah
blah don't do it blah but I don't care. My tanru are regular.) we can
"fill" the selbri of the abstraction in the fai-place by means of that
seltau.

(An example of my tanru rule. We can reduce the gismu deep structure
{mi dukse lo ni kelci la metroid} by using the tanru {mi kelci be la
metroid dukse}. In order to avoid the use of be and possibly bei and
be'o, we can use {co} like so: {mi dukse co kelci la metroid}.)

NB. {jai} has a second, completely unrelated use that concerns members
of TAG: {ko'a jai TAG broda fai ko'e} is equivalent to {ko'e broda TAG
ko'a} but is more stylish in my opinion. Aside from that, this use of
{jai} can be used to form interesting descriptions. One example from
The Codex Woldemar is similar to {lo jai gau fagri} for "firestarter".

>>
>>
>> Using si'e implies *time* I'd say, because these MOI cmavo don't know
>> of the natural implications of "going" such as distance travelled,
>> etc.
>
> This makes sense, for si'e comparing {lo nu}s to be comparing the temporal
> dimension. I'd even go as far as to say the subjectivity of time is implied
> -- that is, if I were to give the comparison, I'd be saying that I think of
> one event as half of the other event in some way. That would be first
> assumed to be in my own conception of the length of time, and if that made
> no sense, then some other dimension could be looked to.

Of course, no one expects you to use exact values. {ji'i} exists for a
good reason.

>>
>>
>> #4 {la'e lo nu caba'o klama cu fi'uresi'e la'e lo mu'e klama}
>
> what on earth are you trying to do here?
> ({la'e} only confuses me 20% of the time nowadays)

The problem with {la'e} is that it's not exactly clear what type of
value it returns. In this case, I'm using it to get a reference to the
travelled distance, which is pointed to by the event of going, in my
opinion. Of course, {la'e} is extremely value, which is why I
personally prefer the {ni} version, not to mention that there's no
(official) way to reduce anything involving LAhE into a tanru.

>>
>>
>> We can possibly use {ni} to get a
>> "natural-ish-useful-context-dependent-measure-comparable-thing" thanks
>> to No One Understands ni (tm):
>> #5 {lo ni caba'o klama cu fi'uresi'e la'e lo mu'e klama}
>
> Oh, celestia. Please never do this. I like {ni}, and this seems like abuse.
> It would be referring to an amount of traveling, sure, but there's {ve
> klama} sitting right there...
>

I don't see how anyone can really *like* {ni} seeing as it's broken as
hell. (As we say in #lojban, it's taken an arrow in the ni.)
One issue with formally employing ve klama resides in the fact that
according to me, the ve klama is constant at all times one event of
going. That is to say that the ve klama is the whole path connecting
the klama2 to the klama3. As xorxes pointed out, we can create a
different event that connects the klama2 to the current position of
klama1, then use that event's klama4 in a si'e comparison with the
actual event's klama4, but that seems too complicated for any
practical use. I believe that the most practical one involves {jai}
and {ni}.

> What {ni} would be good for is if it needed to be explicit as to what scale
> was to be used. (time/space/length/etc) I'd totally approve of that.

You can specify the scale if you so wish to; ni2 exists for a reason,
but there is (slight?) disagreement as to how one is actually supposed
to fill ni2 (or any scale place for that matter). I personally don't
see the point in specifying the scale. I'd expect my tavla2 to be
capable of understanding, given context.

>>
>>
>> #6 {mi jai fi'u re si'e co ni klama xy} "I'm halfway to X."
>
> Yeah, aforementioned "I don't get {jai}" -- help?
>

Because the si'e1 (must be?) is of the same type as the si'e2, then we
need events on both sides, or {ni}-values on both sides. That explains
the need for {jai}. {ni klama xy} is needed to "fill" the fai-place. I
use {co} because it adds style and let's me avoid using {be}.

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