Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: kona, but not the coffee

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 19:52:45 EDT

In a message dated 6/22/2001 4:33:51 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> la pycyn cusku di'e
> 
> > But 1) {ko} is specific to imperative mode: its primary use is
> exactly 
> > coextensive with that mode.
> 
> i ma smuni zoizoi imperative mode zoi i pe'i ca le nu minde cei cusku
> be zo ko mu'a cu jarco lo selcni>
This breaks down in the second clause and I don't know how to patch it. I 
take it for "When the commander utters "ko", for example, [he] displays an 
emotion." That doesn't seem to be true even in the rather strange sense of 
"emotion" used in Lojban: "ko" is not a UI (thank ya, Jesus!), for example, 
nor clearly connected with any of the emotions listed in the book. It MAY be 
connected in some particular case with any one or group of them, but that 
suggests that it itself is not an emotion word. Nor is commanding an act who 
primary function is to express an emotion -- its primary function is to get 
someone to do something; the rest is incidental, if it occurs at all.

> 
> <> 2) the referent of {ko} defaults to that of {do} but {ko} is 
> > assignable, as we learned in an earlier thread, to any nameable
> group or 
> > object
> 
> i li'a do kakne le nu cusku lu doi mi'o ko co'e li'u mu'a i gendra
> gi'e te jimpe i ku'i tolmle carmi pe'i i melmau fa le nu pilno lo se
> cinmo valsi i ja'ebo le se cinmo valsi ka'e se pilno kansa la'e zo do
> ji'a i secaubo nitcu le valsi po'u zo ko>

{ko}, as a member of KOhA, can be assigned by {goi} to anything at all. In 
an earlier thread on non-second-person imperatives, Lojbab and/or Cowan 
pointed this out by way of a solution. I am not sure whether your technique 
would also work, but it looks OK. It is not as uglily intense as you suggest 
however -- it really is prettily calmer than the {goi} format. As for using 
only the emotion words, I'm not sure (and I don't know how to settle it) 
whether any emotion word or combination of them has exactly the force of an 
imperative -- certainly none has the rehetorical force in any language I 
know of, but Lojban may be odd.

> 
> > 
> > I'm not sure I follow the rest: how does {ko} fit talking about the
> topic of 
> > conversation only?
> 
> i le se tavla ka'e na se casnu i zo ko cu mapti le nu minde la'e zo do
> to li'a la'e zo do se tavla gi'u te tavla toi enaike la'e zo mi'o e le
> 
Yeah, I screwed up on that by getting the places scrambled. But the hearer 
in a talk obviously CAN be the subject of the talk (I have been in many such 
talks in both roles), but it is the role as hearer that determines being in 
the referent of {do}. Still, {ko} can be used for other referents, whether 
it is a good fit (in some aesthetic) or not. I hope, if you need it, you 
will use it, regardless of your presnt intention.