Subject: Re: [lojban] nilbroda

From: Nick Nicholas <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 01:05:35 -0800

>At 02:53 PM 02/19/2001 -0800, you wrote:
>>*shrug* In cases like these, I put arguments like ni2 precisely because
>>introducing broda makes the place structure variadic,
>Where do you put them?

Oops, meant to say "had put them before the places of the seltanru (left
modifier)", because the number of places of the seltanru is variable, and
that way one would always know where the ni2 place was. Of course, this
places regularity over the relative semantic importance of the places, so
it was not kept up; I don't think I ever made firm policy of it anyway (not
that I can remember back to '93), and it was easy enough to overrule.

>>and it's good for
>>predictability to leave the open-ended places till last. (For the same
>>reason, I wanted the comparandum of traji to be x2, not x4.) But of course
>>the book takes priority,
>You wrote that particular section of the book, so I figured you would know
>why you wrote the convention oppositely from what you actually did.

It's an exaggeration to say that I wrote it, but like I said, we have two
conflicting principles: predictability, and place ordering following
relative salience. I'd rather the first prevail, but realistically
acknowledge it (usually) won't. What I'd decided and/or articulated in '93,
I couldn't tell you, and I doubt it's important enough to pore through the
archives.

Nick Nicholas, Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. [email-masked]
www.tlg.uci.edu/~opoudjis
"All the nations also under his dominion were filled with joy and
inexpressible gladness at not being even for a moment deprived of the
benefits of a well ordered government."
--- Eusebius of Caesaria on the accession of Constantine I.