[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [lojban] Ancient Greek, free word order and the same FA two times in a bridi



On Saturday, August 4, 2012 9:27:34 AM UTC-5, selpa'i wrote:
I don't like using logical connectives for this. How about no'u?

fe lo barda fa mi viska fe lo gerku
=
mi viska lo barda no'u lo gerku
"I saw something big, which is a dog."

This issue has further implications than just FA usage, IMO. (addressed below) And when I've thought about it before, I primarily remember it mainly feeling way too arbitrary a decision. Which is why I personally would prefer a vague usage, if any. (i.e. jo'u or no'i) Also personally, it feels really awkward to assume any logical connectiveness at all or direct relationship between the two instances of the FA. That is, when I see {fe lo barda fa mi viska fe lo gerku} my first impulse is that the x2 spot could be filled with either {lo barda} or {lo gerku}, and whether there is anything to be implied about that is unknown.

How this issue comes up in other grammar bits is more interesting to me, however. Particularly, how is {lo gunka be fa mi} currently parsed? If multiple FA are explicitly disallowed, then it makes sense to be able to claim that it means the same as {lo se gunka be mi}. (seems pretty useless) If multiple FA are allowed, then it would probably end up meaning something very similar to {lo gunka GOI mi} of some kind. And that opens a whole 'nother can of worms.

For me, I'm fine with never using either of these ideas, ever, ever, ever. It makes sense. I'd even be fine with having double-FA implying a si/sa/su-like erasure of the first instance. (That is, {mi lo gerku ku viska fe do} could be "I saw the dog -- no, wait, I mean I saw you.") That fits in more nicely with how GOhA pro-bridi are handled, where the repeated instances overwrite older occurances. It's extraordinarily functional for GOhA in conversation. If that were the handling for FA, I'd expect {lo gunka be fa mi} to be parsed as semantic nonsense, probably a mistake meant to be {lo gunka po'u/no'u mi}

Overall, I look at it as being a bit of a folly to assign a meaning to multiple FA, but if I were to go with anything, I'd take great care to be as consistent as possible with the other grammatical constructs. Just off of these, erasure seems most sensible to me.

mu'o mi'e djos

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/lojban/-/SoC8INItRrsJ.
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.