Subject: RE: [lojban] The Pleasures of goi (was: zipf computations & experimental cmavo

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 21:39:28 -0400

At 10:54 PM 9/28/01 +0100, And Rosta wrote:
>John:
> > Invent Yourself wrote:
> > > no'u probably works like you think goi already does:
> > >
> > > ko'a goi la djan. .i li'o .i la fred. no'u ko'a
> > > ko'a is John. Fred is John.
> >
> > By no means: saying "ko'a no'u la djan." is bogus if ko'a is not
> > *already* defined. The whole point of goi (and cei) is their
> > defining nature.
>
>But you seem to be failing to recognize that ko'a, like cmene,
>do not have to be defined by goi. They can get their referent
>from context.
>
>English: It is big.
>Lojban: ko'a barda
>
>In neither case must it or ko'a have an antecedent in previous
>utterances.

This may be the case in present Lojban, but when ko'a and goi were defined, 
ko'a was expected to always be explicitly defined with goi at first 
use. Other usage was *allowed* but at the risk of confusion if nonsense 
resulted.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org