From xod@sixgirls.org Fri Sep 21 19:55:49 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: xod@reva.sixgirls.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2_2); 22 Sep 2001 02:55:49 -0000 Received: (qmail 77325 invoked from network); 22 Sep 2001 02:55:49 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 22 Sep 2001 02:55:49 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO reva.sixgirls.org) (64.152.7.13) by mta2 with SMTP; 22 Sep 2001 02:55:48 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by reva.sixgirls.org (8.11.6+3.4W/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f8M2tma15796 for ; Fri, 21 Sep 2001 22:55:48 -0400 (EDT) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 22:55:47 -0400 (EDT) To: lojban Subject: RE: [lojban] Dumb answers to good questions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Invent Yourself On Sat, 22 Sep 2001, And Rosta wrote: > lojbab: > > At 01:59 PM 9/20/01 +0100, And Rosta wrote: > > >So the general Lojban strategy I'd propose would be twofold > > >(a) a method of isolating the focused item along the lines sketched > > >above, > > > > We have a prenex approach to this where it is a sumti you want to draw > > focus to, as well as fronting and trailing markedly, which brings focus by > > the marking. > > What'd help here would be Lojban translations of > > It was John that Bill hit la djan. zo'u B darxi D > It was Bill that hit John > What John did was hit Bill > What John did to Bill was hit him > What happened to Bill was John hit him Very subtle. What if this can't be directly translated into Lojban? Would that be a bad thing? > It is John and Bill that are respectively x, y such that x hit y > > etc. -- Using structural methods of isolating the focused phrase. > > > ba'e of course directly adds emphasis, but does not indicate why, which > > draws focus. > > Not bad, but there are other reasons for emphasis besides focus, so > ba'e will no do as the focus marker. Why not? What else could "ba'e D darxi B" mean, besides "*John* hit Bill."? > > > (b) an optional UI to mark the focused item -- the equivalent > > >of English intonation's focal stress ("Bob HIT Bill", etc.). > > The > closest we have to this beside ba'e is bi'u/bi'unai which were > > originally intended by Colin Fine who proposed them to deal with one > > particular reason for focus. > > bi'u(nai) is for given/new rather than for focus. While focused information > is new, not all new information is focused. So nor will bi'u do as the > focus marker. .ie > More generally, though, as with po'o this is a 'problem' that should > be fixed by logical/structural means rather than primarily by a > discursive. I'm interested to see what you can come up with without completely breaking known Lojban. ----- It's said that Mullah Omar has met two non-Muslims in his life. Others say even that's not true. Sami ul-Haq, Osama bin Laden's closest friend in Pakistan, runs the "University for the Education of Truth," a fundamentalist institution that educated and trained nine out of the Taliban's top 10 leaders.