Subject: Re: [lojban] multiple choice questions

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 20:59:32 EDT

In a message dated 6/5/2001 7:44:33 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> But if I ask which of five things you want, and you answer with four
> conjunctions, I may be pondering for a minute or two figuring out that you 
> want
> coffee and sugar, or tea and cream, but not both, and it doesn't matter 
> whether
> you get orange juice. If I ask using the member-of-set construct, and you
> answer with a list, I know what you want immediately.
> 

True, but if you use more than one or two conjunctions in any of these 
situations you are better off making a list, because the consequences of 
various conjunctions on one another boggles the mind pretty quickly. To be 
sure, left grouped conjunctions, the standard answer here, are very little 
problem and amount to a list anyhow (except that you have to remember what 
ordered you offered the things in). {ji} does not, in any case, force the 
shortest answer, {e enai enai e e} say; you can put the items in too. 
Lojbanic sentences are often inconvenient for us, but they may not be for 
Lojbanders.