"-r-", which has allomorphs "-n-" and, only in type-3 fu'ivla, "-l-", is an
interfix. It doesn't mean anything; it's required by morphology rules.
Are you suggesting that -r/n- can be used as an interfix outside of type-3 fu'ivla? Outside of the type-3 use, I have seen syllabic consonants only *inside* certain marginal fu'ivla shapes. At any rate, I am not sure that it is correct to say that these interfixes have no meaning, since there are two contrastive types (in some positions at least) with obvious differences in meaning. A -y- signals that the left-side part is a dependent stem in a conventional compound, while an -n/r- in type-3 signals an "intra-stem" relationship in which the left-side is a semantic hint and the right-side is content.
Classifiers, in linguistics, are words used with numbers (or, in Apachean
languages, denoting grouping) to indicate the type of thing counted. "bic-" is
something else.
True. What I was driving at is noun class, but there is no symbol for that. I interpret bicr- as something like a noun-class marker. Not exactly, of course, since Lojban type-3 prefixes are much more open-class than attested noun class systems e.g. in Bantu languages and some Polynesian languages.
> -bombu / "Bombus" or bumblebee
> cu / *VPZ / verb-phrase-izer
It's the same thing as "i" in Tok Pisin, which is called the predicate marker.
Looks like PM is the abbreviation for that.
> se / INV / inverse voice
INV2, as there are also te, ve, and xe.
> bevri / carry
> mi / 1 or 1SG / 1st person or 1st person singular (pragmatically, probably
> sg right?)
I'd say 1SG, as Lojban has 1PL pronouns with clusivity. "mi" can be used with
a plural referent, which means that we all speak as one, or something like
that.
Those are my thoughts too. It might make sense in corporate prayer, legal contracts, signed petitions, and the like. I still tend to think that pragmatically any plural use of "mi" should be marked as "ro mi" or something. The plural meaning is hardly ever needed, and IMHO it's more confusing (as in these glosses) than helpful to have it hanging around.
> o'a- / proudly
It's not an adverb ("proudly" would modify "carry"). It's an attitudinal, and
should get an abbreviation in caps.
Something like proud.ATNL perhaps?
> -dai / OBV / obviate (don't know what else to call this)
I don't either. The obviative marks a third person as being less salient than
another third person. One of "ko'a" and "fo'a" could be considered proximate
and the other obviative.
Right, and similarly, -dai marks something that is less salient than the first person. Another case where I tried to recycle something out there in use.
> lo / DET or *NPZ
> mamta / mother
> be / INAL / inalienable possession
Inalienable possession is "po'e". "lo citka be lo funduki" does not mean "the
eater inalienably possessed by a hazelnut"; it means "someone who eats a
hazelnut".
I would not use INAL in all cases of "be". In the case of citka I'd use DO (direct object) or something. However, I do think that the alienability distinction, as it usually appears in natural languages (e.g. in terms for kin, body parts, etc.), is nearly always reflected in Lojban place structures and expressed in the alternation between "pe" and "be". In my view, inalienable possession is merely a subtype of a much more general argument/non-argument distinction, whether linguists (or Lojbanists) notice it or not.
As far as "po'e", it's supposed to be a fall-back in case a Lojban place structure fails to capture the inalienable possessor of some word in some culture. I am not sure how much use it has seen, but I think that if its function is really needed, it would be more fitting simply to coin a new word with the desired place structure. I would say that "be" is the real inalienable possessor marker in Lojban.
mi'e .maik.
mu'o.