Subject: [lojban] Re: Honorifics (was: RE: Re: The Any thread)

From: Robert LeChevalier <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2003 19:48:14 -0500

At 06:59 PM 3/3/03 -0500, Craig wrote:
> >ga'i
>
>Despite the gloss, ga'i does not cover honorific territory. It is necessary
>for a true honorific system to be able to indicate more than rank.

ga'i covers the rank portion of the honorific. You have many many 
attitudinals to modify the rank to get other honorific functions. "io" 
would seem to likely be common.

> For
>instance, most communist leaders would want an honorific indicating that
>they are close to the people.

Comrade(tovarishch) as I understand it implies equal in rank, but with some 
formal respect, so ga'icu'i .io, or simply ".io" would work.

Also, most honorifics that have nothing to do with leadership are not simply
>rank. These include both honorific meanings of "Doctor", "Professor" when
>used honorifically, "the Honorable" for judges, and probably some that I
>can't think of. Also consider the English system, which it would help to be
>able to translate for use when translating texts. Mister for male, Miss for
>unmarried female, and suspensions that don't expand to anything anymore but
>are pronounced "miz" and "misses" for generic and married female
>respectively. This cannot be said with ga'i, and it is essential for
>translations that it be translatable.

Professor Smith might be doi smit po'u la ctuca .io
Mister is then la nanmu .io
Ms. is then la ninmu .io
Mrs. is then la fetspe .io

ga'i was put in for when a relative rank is explicitly required, as in some 
Asian languages.

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