From ragnarok@pobox.com Tue Nov 13 17:38:34 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: raganok@intrex.net X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 14 Nov 2001 01:38:33 -0000 Received: (qmail 33676 invoked from network); 14 Nov 2001 01:38:32 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.172) by m10.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 14 Nov 2001 01:38:32 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO intrex.net) (209.42.192.250) by mta2.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 14 Nov 2001 01:38:33 -0000 Received: from Craig [209.42.200.98] by intrex.net (SMTPD32-5.05) id AB1C5B6A021E; Tue, 13 Nov 2001 20:38:36 -0500 Reply-To: To: Subject: RE: [lojban] Why is there so much irregularity in cmavo/gismu? Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 20:38:26 -0500 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Importance: Normal X-eGroups-From: "Craig" From: "Craig" X-Yahoo-Profile: kreig_daniyl An explanation of why xu and .ui are different grammatically. Consider a hypothetical person - we'll call him Jimbob, a good generic lojbanist name - who comes to me to ask about lojban. First he asks how to say "I go." I tell him you say "mi klama," not wanting to get into SE and FA yet. But, lover of attitudinals that I am, I mention that you show your feelings with a word that you can put anywhere in the sentence. For instance, "I go :-)" is "mi klama .ui" He asks how to make commands. I tell him you use a different form of the word for 'you'. He asks how to ask yes/no questions. I say you stick 'xu' anywhere in the sentence. So Jimbob goes off and reads the Codex Woldemar. He then asks why I didn't tell him that the emotions and questions were the same. I explain to him that in English, we say 'ick' to express displeasure, and we rephrase the sentence to ask a question. "In Lojban," I say, "the two can occupy the same grammatical space. But 'How do I ask a question' and 'how do I express displeasure' are still very different questions, linguistically. It doesn't matter that the answer is the same, because it doesn't have to be. That in Lojban it is, makes no difference as to what the questions ask." And then, Jimbob achieves enlightenment. --la kreig.daniyl. 'lonu zasti ce lonu na zasti cu finsi'u .i loka nandu ce loka frili cu riksi'u .i loka clani ce loka tordu cu mresi'u .i loka galtu ce loka dizlu cu bapsi'u .i lo voksa joi lo sance cu saxsi'u .i caku lo purci lo bavli cu katyje'i' -la lautsyn. xy.sy. gubmau ckiku nacycme: 0x5C3A1E74