Re: [lojban] Robin retry: commands.

[Betsemes <betsemes@gmail.com>]

Just for the record and just in case; I'm being inquisitive only. I
just am asking questions. I consider the topic of commands, a topic of
importance; so I don't want it to just die away without a proper
conclusion as it seemed to be happening. I want a solution. I'm not
being confrontational.

Also, I paused replying to this discussion for a few days to learn the
lojban words the fluents were introducing, something I'm still doing,
because I'm not fluent yet. That's why I insisted on replying in my
non-native English.

That said, back to topic.

On Sun, May 26, 2013 at 12:45 AM, la arxokuna
<gleki.is.my.name@gmail.com> wrote:
> {rei}  may indeed lead to confusion with {re} as they are both numbers. So
> speaking in terms of practicism {xei} is preferable.
> But then {rei} is useless. Let's look at the corpus:
> http://www.lojban.org/corpus/search/rei
> I could count only 5 (!) real usages of {rei}. So why bother? In the corpus
> we have many more occurrencies of other words that have never been properly
> defined and/or entered into jvs.

I have already seen the poor usage of {rei}.

> As for commands I'm sure it's an utterly important thing.
> So using rei for command imperatives and {reinai} for prohibitives ...

What are prohibitives? At face value it sounds like: "reinai ko broda"
(I forbid you to do/be broda). Is this what it means. As I guess it
is, it's just a command for not doing something, and thus pointless.
Could you enlighten me?

> would be
> nice (of course {xoi} can also be used but {rei} reminds of {.ei} so ...)
> Also the sound [r] has subliminal impression of resoluteness in many
> languages.
> Three-syllable cmavo cluster for prohibitives would be too verbose.
>
> the CLL was written 16 years ago. Such words as {xo'e}, {xo'o}, {xa'o} are
> used many more times than some even one-syllable cmavo.
> So although officially {xo'e} is experimental it's de facto one of the key
> concepts of the language. The same for the other two xV'V.

If you care for my opinion on experimentals, I'd say the concept of
them for a human language is impractical. It may sound good for
another matter, but I see human languages as living things. Once a
language is absorbed into an individual, it becomes alive. So a word
already assimilated and used is hard to unlearn as surely as a wounded
organism will attempt to heal.

> For me {.e'i}=to have to
> {.ei} = should/ought to

So then, how a cmavo for commands would be defined?

rei attitudinal: command - ????

mu'o mi'e betsemes

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