From arosta@uclan.ac.uk Mon Sep 23 09:36:44 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban-out@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_1_3); 23 Sep 2002 16:36:44 -0000 Received: (qmail 34424 invoked from network); 23 Sep 2002 16:36:44 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m6.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 23 Sep 2002 16:36:44 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO digitalkingdom.org) (204.152.186.175) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 23 Sep 2002 16:36:43 -0000 Received: from lojban-out by digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.05) id 17tWEa-0006Pc-00 for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Mon, 23 Sep 2002 09:38:56 -0700 Received: from digitalkingdom.org ([204.152.186.175] helo=chain) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 17tWE1-0006MA-00; Mon, 23 Sep 2002 09:38:21 -0700 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 23 Sep 2002 09:38:20 -0700 (PDT) Received: from com1.uclan.ac.uk ([193.61.255.3]) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 17tWDu-0006La-00 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 23 Sep 2002 09:38:14 -0700 Received: from gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk by com1.uclan.ac.uk with SMTP (Mailer); Mon, 23 Sep 2002 17:03:45 +0100 Received: from DI1-Message_Server by gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk with Novell_GroupWise; Mon, 23 Sep 2002 17:36:19 +0100 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.2 Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2002 17:35:35 +0100 To: lojban-list Subject: [lojban] Re: cmavo for emphasis? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Disposition: inline X-archive-position: 1530 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: arosta@uclan.ac.uk Precedence: bulk X-list: lojban-list From: And Rosta Reply-To: arosta@uclan.ac.uk X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=810630 X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin Jordan: #On Mon, Sep 23, 2002 at 01:42:17PM +0100, And Rosta wrote: #> Jay: #> #On Mon, Sep 23, 2002 at 01:26:08AM +0100, And Rosta wrote: #> #> Viktoro [mailto:vixcafe@yahoo.ca] #> #> > Are there particles for showing emphasis? #> #> > #> #> > In English, we use a stronger voice to show emphasis in sentences #> #> > like: #> #> > #> #> > "The *dog* bit the postman." #> #> > #> #> > "The dog bit the *postman*." #> #> > #> #> > "The dog *bit* the postman." #> #> > #> #> > How does one indicate emphasis? By word order or what? #> # #> #ba'e before the word, in all these cases. Only And's third example #> #would actually suggest emphasis to those using the language. The #> #others appear as simply being contorted. #> #> Whereas to speakers of natural languages the world over, the kind #> of 'contortion' used in my examples is one of the most common strategies #> of focus marking. # #Thankfully it is not the strategy used by lojban, however. Neither #is using a stronger voice. I should backtrack/retract slightly. {ba'e} is indeed the mechanism for adding emphasis, and not word order or the like. I (mis?)read between the lines of what Viktoro was saying, and took him to be asking about focus ("It was the dog (that) bit the postman", "It was the postman the dog bit", "It was biting that the dog did to the postman"), and based my response on that. As I recall, we discussed focus some time last year, found that Lojban had no focalizer as such, and my 'contortions' seemed the best strategy short of adding a new focalizing cmavo. (Conceivably {kau} could be reclaimed as the focalizer it once was, but there are reasons for wanting not to do that.) #> It must be remembered that "those using the language" are using it at #> a level comparable to beginners level in natlangs, and without the #> advantage of models of fluent 'native-like' usage to emulate. #> Learning Lojban by emulating current usage is like going to learn #> English in, say, a ghetto in London populated by people who have #> immigrated from Kurdistan in the last five years. # #This is irrelevant. You can ignore ba'e if you want, but it is the #*only* way to actually emph words. Varied word order will make #people pay attention to different aspects of your sentence, but it #doesn't allow for saying the same sentence with different emph (as #the OP clearly wanted). Yes about {ba'e} as the emphasis marker. But what I said wasn;t irrelevant. Viktor asked "how do we express this", I said how, and Jay answered that users of the language wouldn't understand the usage. In a sense I was arguing that Jay's point was irrelevant, that what users will or won't understand doesn't tell us much about Lojban. --And.