Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: noxemol ce'u

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 6 Oct 2001 20:18:09 EDT

In a message dated 10/6/2001 6:44:29 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> If the construction which {le} starts is a considered a separate one of what 
> we
> call "bridi" for convenience, then {lenei} becomes utter nonsense.
> 
> {la djan viska lenei}: John sees himself
> However, if {nei} is counted as a bridi even though it is part of a {le}
> clause:
> {la djan viska lenei}: John sees something which is itself
> 

As you will recall, {le nei} created a number of problems on its own. If if 
were nonsense, then perhaps it would not be used and the problems would 
disappear -- or thin out a bit anyhow. But anyhow, {nei} clearly IS a bridi, 
so what occurs after {le} can be a bridi, which was the point I was making to 
begin with. Thank you for your support, even though it goes against what you 
just said.

<{mamta be ce'u} is what you're saying is a bridi, right?
It is a relationship among arguments, true. What it is not is a separate level
of a Lojban sentence, because it is preceded by {le}.

Articles like {le} refer to what would fill the x1 of a bridi which 
corresponds
to what comes next. They do not actually include that bridi in the sentence.>

Muddled, but I gather that the point is that, although {mamta be ce'u} is a 
bridi by the definition, it is not something else that someone might want to 
call a bridi -- something that constitutes a separate level in a Lojban 
sentence. Is there a sense to this notion of level that you can spell out, 
so that (at a guess) something after a {du'u}, say, is in a new level, but 
something after LE is not. What about {poi} and the like? On the one hand, 
they clearly seem to be separable and eventually parallel to the main clause, 
on the other hand, they are just the predicate part of a LE phrase written in 
a different way (according to one of And's tales, anyhow). 

Notice, by the way, that, when this is all done, And will -- if he is 
successful -- have proven that {ce'u} is not a sumti in {le mamta be ce'u}, 
something that I conceded fairly early on, indeed insisted on. I apologize 
for being a terrible writer, but I don't really think I am THAT bad.