Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: zo xruti xruti

From: Robert LeChevalier <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 17 Aug 2002 22:54:25 -0400

At 02:22 AM 8/18/02 +0200, Adam Raizen wrote:
>I understand the historical development, but the current definition of
>fatne is "x1 [sequence] is in reverse order from x2 [sequence]; x1
>(object) is inverted from x2 (object)", and I don't see how that can
>include reverting or returning.

If you reverse the order of a process, where do you end up other than where 
you started?

>For one thing, it doesn't contain a
>place for the state/property that is returned to. If someone says 'mi
>fatne', does that mean that they're standing on their head, or that
>they've returned?

You can't fatne, although tu'a do (as a process) could be understood as a 
sequence. But we are talking about fatne as the modifier of a lujvo tanru, 
and there is (or should be) a LOT of latitude in tanru (per the red book, 
which lists a large variety of acceptable tanru modes that seldom seem to 
get used).

> > > (I concede that 'zilpavyxru' would have the necessary
> > >meaning, but it is unnecessarily long and complicated.)
> >
> > Why not just zilxru? The pa seems to be the logical default for a
>deleted
> > place, since you can get the others with SE rather than numbering.
>
>I would think that 'zil' by itself would work like 'don' and other
>KOhA cmavo with rafsi, in that it would fill up one of the places
>greater than x1 with the sumti in question. It would be strange to
>interpret 'donta'a' as 'You talk to x1 about x2', rather than 'x1
>talks to you about x2'. But in general I would like to avoid using
>'zi'o' at all for anything; it is too clumsy.

I agree.

> > Adding new gismu is an even bigger change to the baseline.
>
>Well, I'm not sure that it's bigger; at least it doesn't invalidate
>anyone's usage or require that anyone relearn anything, which seems to
>be historically the reason for the baseline in the first place.

That is half the reason. The other half is to get people out of the mode 
of solving problems by "yet another language modification". In the time 
before the gismu baseline, we averaged 1-2 new gismu proposals per month, 
all of which had to be decided. After the baseline, we have had only a 
couple in 8 years.

>At any
>rate, this doesn't have to be a baseline change. A new gismu could
>easily come into use without being on the official lists, and it
>should be much easier to get people to use it, since it doesn't
>contradict anything official.

I won't comment, since my position on unofficial words is the obvious 
official one. %^)

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