Subject: Re: [lojban] Another stab at a Record on ce'u

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2001 11:18:25 EDT

In a message dated 8/28/2001 11:40:23 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> On Tue, Aug 28, 2001 at 08:51:39PM -0400, [email-masked] wrote:
> > Simple, but unreliable ("where context indisputably demands" is going to 
> take 
> > in a lot of cases for some folk, none for others). So use the rule that 
> > covers all the cases -- I've offered two that don't use up {si'o} or 
> anything 
> > else and rarely require more than three or four syllables, regardless how 
> > many {ce'u} are needed. And agree with the first clause of yours (as it 
> must 
> > to meet the problems conditions). Now, what is wrong with these 
> proposals, 
> > especially the second?
> 
> In recent Lojban text, people have been using {ka ce'u klama} to make it
> entirely clear. There was an assumption that if you specify a ce'u, you 
> don't
> need any interpretive rules to decide where the ce'u goes. The interpretive
> conventions have been about what to do _in the absence of ce'u_.

Exactly so. So, if you use {ce'u} wherever you intend one, then you have no 
need for conventions -- provided there are no conventions around that get in 
the way. So, I take this as an objection to the "all {ce'u}" convention at 
the end of my summary. OK, drop that. Then your claim is perfectly clear. 
In fact that does help warn people that you are not using a convention, 
probably also a good thing to do.

> 
> Your idea points at them and says "Nope, you're wrong. {ka ce'u klama} 
> actually
> means {ka ce'u klama ce'u ce'u ce'u ce'u}". And for what benefit? Just to 
> make
> it really easy to have an all-ce'u bridi, which I still haven't seen a
> plausible use for besides talking about the bridi itself. (For which I would
> prefer {la'e zo klama}).

IF you use the conventions. I like {la'e zo klama} better, too, but it is 
not a predicate, as {ka ce'u klama ce'u ce'u ce'u} is. That needs fixing 
(preferably not wiht {me}).

> 
> And the idea of a ce'u that you _have_ to elide is just absurd.
> {ka klama} = {ka ce'u klama}
> {ka ce'u klama} = {ka ce'u klama ce'u ce'u ce'u ce'u}
> 
> If you mean {ka ce'u klama}, you can't say it, and if you say it, you don't
> mean it. How does this make anything clearer?
Dropping the full {ce'u} proposal (I thought it was kinda cute, but I was 
clearly wrong, regardless of the parameters of the task), that initial {ce'u} 
becomes a warning that you are not using the convention and thus holds you to 
every {ce'u} you say and not one more.

> 
> Incidentally, since you disagree with the idea of context demanding a
> two-{ce'u} bridi, how would you state one under your proposal? If you state
> both {ce'u}s, all the other places get {ce'u}-d as well.
> 
{ka broda fe ce'u}