Subject: The art of place structure. (And how to destroy it.)

From: "eye_onus" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2003 02:39:39 -0000

I recently came across la lojban. due to Eric S. Raymond (the author 
of 'The Jargon File') and his paper on using J.R.R. Tolkien's Tengwar 
character set for Lojban. I've been working on learning it, and have 
recently completed Chapter 3 of 'Lojban for Beginner's' by Robin 
Turner and Nick Nicholas, whereupon I came to the lojban 
word 'klama' : x1 goes to x2 from x3 via route x4 by means x5

As in 'I go to the store from my house via Bradway using my car.'

The thing is, I would think that the means for how x1 goes to x2 
would be used more often than where the x1 departs from (x3) or 
especially what route x1 is taking (x4). i.e. 'I go to the store in 
my car.' happens more often than 'I go to the store from my house.' 
x4 I would not think is used much at all.

So, if I wanted to say 'I went to the store in my car.' in Lojban, I 
would have to say 'mi klama le sorcu fu karce', and if I then, as an 
afterthought, also decided to say where from and what route, I would 
finish that with 'fi zo'e zo'e'. I am familiar with 'se' and related, 
which switch x1 and xn, but is there a way to alter the place 
structure of 'klama' to mean 'x1 goes to x2 by means x3 from x4 via 
route x5'?

-Jon
Apologies in advance for excessive wordiness and anything 'maglico' 
in this post.