Subject: Re: [lojban] A set of questions

From: Pierre Abbat <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 17:07:43 -0400

On Tue, 10 Apr 2001, Avital Oliver wrote:
>After I (finally) got ahold of a copy of the Reference Grammer, and read
>it quite deeply, I have a few questions:
>
>1) The book states that the tense modifier co'u states the actual endpoint
>of an event, and mo'u states the natural endpoint, which may be before or
>after co'u. Even still, za'o means "the time after mo'u, but before co'u",
>and there is no modifier for "the time after co'u, but before mo'u". Did I
>understand correctly, and if so, help?

The modifier for indicating that co'u precedes mo'u is xa'o, which was recently
made up and is experimental.

>5) How are stage 4 fu'ivla really created? Are they used? What happened
>with the CCVVCV proposition for cultures, as stated in the book?

I use them and usually make them up by taking some word that's close enough to
fu'ivla tarmi and making it fit. Here are some examples:
mlongena: eggplant (Solanum melongena) - whether the eggplant is distinct from
the brinjal I'm not certain; I've also seen S. esculentum for the eggplant
tce'exo: Czech
malgaci: Malagasy (of Madagascar)
skalduna: Basque (they call themselves "euskaldunak")
lartodektu: widow spider (Latrodectus spp.)

I have proposed a scheme wherein other than CCVVCV-seltarmi fu'ivla can have
rafsi. The rafsi of these words are mlongen, tce'ex, skaldun, and lartodekt;
malgaci does not have a rafsi because malgacysmani parses as a derogatory term
meaning "gas monkey", so is unusable for lemur. But I'm waiting for Richard
Curnow to write some code to lex them.

>8) Why is ke'a needed? Why not always state that after a NOI clause, the
>x1 of the clause bridi is ke'a, and if needed for any other places, you
>can use ke'a?

I usually assume that it's the first open place, if that makes sense. If it
isn't, I may assume that anyway and get confused.

phma