Subject: Re: [lojban] Epictetus, Discourses 1.1

From: Nick NICHOLAS <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 21:04:04 -0700 (PDT)

cu'u la xorxes.

>But {le se jitro be ma'a} seems closer than {zo'e pe ji'o ma'a}
>to "the under us"...

*shrug* So did it please me. It still does...

>Maybe usage will just redefine {na} as having scope over the
>bridi-tail only. Are there other languages that have their negatives
>work as in Lojban?

You mean, I suppose, that naku is natural and na is not, right? I suspect
so too. I'm not quite in a position to hunt down typological surveys of
negation; And, would you have access to this sort of thing? If you're
really keen to know, I'll see if I can't reattach to the grapevine of
erstwhile colleagues...

>If you lack something to write, then you use grammar to decide
>what to write?

Yes --- where "grammar" of course corresponds more to what we'd now call
"Composition Classes", "English" in Anglo countries, and "Philology" in
Greek.

Re: te mabla, te zabna
> Your use fits neither, so what is your definition?

Well, I guess it's in between. Because of the "word" implied in the gismu
list, I take mabla and zabna to be primarily linguistic rather than mental
activities. So their x3 is someone praising or dismissing, not someone
thinking that something is praiseworthy or dismissable.

But I think both fit Epictetus: because you will have proper Stoic
detatchment and judgement, you will not bother cursing or flattering
anyone --- or for that matter making emotive judgements on things other
than as they really are (which is I assume why the x1 and x2 of mabla and
zabna are distinct) --- because you're a Stoic, dude. As I exclaimed on
the rather chilly Twin Peaks in San Francisco Sunday :-) --- {.i mo .ue .i
xu do ba dujri'a mi .i go'i le ganti po'o .i leka vrude cuxna pe mi la
zdeus. ji'a na ka'e dujri'a} (I'd say it in English, but not everyone here
is as Aristophanean as me. :-)

Now if only someone would tell me what the Lojban for "The world is
everything that is the case" is...

-- 
== == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == ==
Nick Nicholas, Breathing {le'o ko na rivbi fi'inai palci je tolvri danlu}
[email-masked] -- Miguel Cervantes tr. Jorge LLambias