Subject: Re: [lojban] Logical translation request

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2001 13:56:45

la adam cusku di'e
>la rab.spir. cusku di'e
>
> > How does this justify VA and ZI being separate? And do they in fact
>have
> > different grammar, or is this another case of a bogus split in
>selma'o?
> > (I forget what the other one was - I think it involved TAhE)

I think the only bogus splits are ZAhO-TAhE, UI-CAI and Y-DAhO-FUhO.

>Yes, ZAhO and TAhE and number+ROI are all grammatically identical, but
>putting ZAhO and TAhE into one selma'o wouldn't help learning at all,
>since there's a semantic distinction to be made, and any glance at the
>formal grammar would reveal that they're grammatically identical.

I still think it would be tidier to use just one name, even if
you keep them as separate groups within the selma'o for other
purposes (the way UIs and PAs for example are grouped into
different classes). But that's not a big problem, I can think
of TAhEs as being in selmaho ZAhO and I will still be using the
same grammar.

The problem are the actual restrictions. For example, ZEhA must always
come before ZAhO/TAhE/numberROI in a tense compound. But something
like {ze'u reroi ze'i} "long-interval twice short-interval" would
be perfectly meaningful. Indeed, you can say "long-interval twice
three-times", but not "long-interval twice short-interval three-times".
We can only talk of the size of the total interval, not of the
sub-intervals.

Why is not ZEhA at the same level as ZAhO/TAhE/numberROI?
We are forced to learn more rules (that ZEhA always comes before
those) and we are restricted from saying something that would be
meaningful. What is the advantage of the restriction?

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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