Re: [lojban] Should I quit learning Lojban?

[Pierre Abbat <phma@bezitopo.org>]

On Saturday, April 27, 2013 22:26:34 la gleki wrote:
> In {la .alis. cu remna} Alice can refer to several people as well.
> Referential use of {le} can help if two participants of the conversation
> have agreed for which object to use it however even in that case there
> might be misunderstanding ( what if speaker A called an apple {le plise}
> but the speaker B unlike the speaker B noticed several apples around).
> 
> Other brivla in Lojban are all properties.
> I guess in {lo plise cu xunre} {xunre} is a property, right?
> 
> Then for me the following raising doesn't mean much.
> {mi viska lo plise noi xunre}
> {mi viska lo xunre}
> 
> And of course lo plise = zo'e noi plise.
> 
> (If we for the first time in our life see an orange we might call it {ti
> plise ga'a mi'a}, so {plise} is also a property).
> 
> So I just can't see why Lojban is SAE.

SAE sensu stricto includes Romance, Germanic, and various other European 
languages. SAE sensu lato includes, as far as I can see, all of Indo-European, 
Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Semitic, and probably other families. Either way, it's 
defined by properties of the language, not by belonging to certain families.

Lojban is definitely not SAE s.s. I think it is not SAE s.l. either, but 
appears to be because most Lojbanists are native speakers of SAE languages. If 
we raised Lojban speakers for whom e.g. "le blabi cu mlatu" or "se mlatu le 
blabi" were no stranger a construction than "le mlatu cu blabi", Lojban as 
they spoke it would not be SAE s.l.

I'm not sure I understand "things with holes and things to plug the holes", 
but unlike all the language families I listed above, Lojban has no adjectives. 
Lojban does have nouns, but their use is severely restricted compared to SAE 
languages, common nouns being generally expressed by verbs.

> I have the following case unsolved:
> <quote>The classic contrast between an SAE language and a process one is
> the name of a wet spot in the Grand Canyon area.  The Anglos call it
> Weeping Spring, a thing with a property.  The Hopi call it Whiting
> Downward, a process.</quote>
> 
> How to say "I'm near the whiting downward" in this language then?
> I guess in Lojban we can't say {mi jibni lo nu farlu}. How can i be near a
> process? I can only be near some atoms taking part in that process.
> How do the Hopi solve this problem?

I'd say it in Lojban "mi jibni le mo'ini'a blabi" (or "la mo'ini'a blabi" 
since it's a name). I don't know Hopi. I assume you do not mean "mo'ini'a 
merlanu".

Pierre
-- 
The Black Garden on the Mountain is not on the Black Mountain.

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