From lojban@lojban.org Wed May 30 17:57:41 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojban@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_1_3); 31 May 2001 00:57:41 -0000 Received: (qmail 97393 invoked from network); 31 May 2001 00:57:41 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by l10.egroups.com with QMQP; 31 May 2001 00:57:41 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO stmpy-5.cais.net) (205.252.14.75) by mta2 with SMTP; 31 May 2001 00:57:40 -0000 Received: from bob.lojban.org (dynamic226.cl8.cais.net [205.177.20.226]) by stmpy-5.cais.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f4V0vdV62173 for ; Wed, 30 May 2001 20:57:39 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010530191216.00add720@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: vir1035/pop.cais.com@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 19:21:03 -0400 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] RE: Grammar Clarifications In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: Logical Language Group At 03:31 PM 05/30/2001 -0400, pycyn@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 5/30/2001 9:44:33 AM Central Daylight Time, >jcowan@reutershealth.com writes: > > >>Essentially that there was no way of representing what >>"me" means now, whereas what "me" used to mean is just >>"steci be" = "pertains to". > >Yes, this is what I thought I recalled. Except that {steci be} does not do >justice to the first use JCB gave to it (though it surely passed through this >in the traditional JCB path from light to miasma): The first two uses were >{ti me la Kraislr karce} (translating to Lojban, I hope) and {la loglan se >kevna lo me zo me} "There is a me-shaped hole in Loglan" (JCB inevitably >thought this the cleverest use of "me," and it does have a charm). The latter seems to be an avoidance of using "la'e", which is what we would normally think of when referring to >words and their application to things or, and I'm not sure what the distinction you are trying for in the following alternative: >rather, the things they were applied to, not about the referents of the >expressions that followed the {me}. But I think that "steci be [sumti]" would have worked for both of those examples. ti steci be la kraislr karce la loglyn se kevna lo steci be zo me >The phenomenon intended is common enough >to deserve a cheap means (and {me} now seems virtually useless, given {du} >and other ordinary features). The primary use of "me", as with several other words, is the conversion from a sumti to a selbri, whenever we have a reason to do so and don't want to figure a more elegant way of doing it (if one is possible). "du" doesn't accomplish that exactly - it equates two or more sumti. "me" causes one to think of "being a [sumti] as itself a predication. -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org 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