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Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2000 14:09:35 EDT
Subject: Re: [lojban] First steps with 'being'...
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In a message dated 00-06-03 12:39:36 EDT, aulun writes:

<< Is this correct? 
mi klama zo'e ma .i mi mo .i mi klama ma
And what's about this:
ma te klama zo'e mi .i mi mo .i ma se klama mi

Are there (still) other ways to express these old questions of
man(kind)?>>


mi klama fi ma, for the first, also moving arguments all before or all after 
the predicate.

<<What's about the other way round with the second phrase? mo mi or: mo
cu mi (I'm all other than confident, though). Or: ma mi>>

mo cu mi is not grammatical, I think, because mi is not a predicate. ditto 
ma mi, where neither is, though I am less sure about that

<<In "mi mo", mo is representing a whole unknown selbri (with all its
unknown places). How can this being narrowed in to a more 
specific question?>>
Put modifiers on mo, a tanru with mo in one place, or prepositional phrases 
at the end.

<<In "do na mi" or "do na'e mi", mi is a whole selbri, aren't it?
(being-I); are there any possible sumti of mi then? I'm having a 
couple of grammatical difficulties with 'to be' not expressed in
Lojban. Is it the fact that every 'noun' in the function of a selbri
also has to have places too? So what are the places of the pro-selbri mi?
>>
I'm not sure I follow. I don't think do na mi nor do na'e mi is grammatical 
as a bridi. The relation unexpressed is presumably identity (one of 
English's 'be's), but that has always to be expressed: mintu, du, or, with 
descriptors, me. The only unexpressed English 'be' is the copular one, that 
attaches a subject to a common noun or adjective; that function is inherent 
in the relation of sumti to brivla within a bridi, so needs no separate mark. 
But mi is not a brivla, so it does not relate to sumti in that way -- it 
has no places -- it is a pro-sumti, not a pro-selbri.