From lojbab@lojban.org Mon Jul 16 17:25:18 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_2_0); 17 Jul 2001 00:25:18 -0000 Received: (qmail 74980 invoked from network); 17 Jul 2001 00:25:17 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 17 Jul 2001 00:25:17 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO stmpy-2.cais.net) (205.252.14.72) by mta1 with SMTP; 17 Jul 2001 00:25:17 -0000 Received: from bob.lojban.org (47.dynamic.cais.com [207.226.56.47]) by stmpy-2.cais.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f6H0PEF78471; Mon, 16 Jul 2001 20:25:14 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010716193836.00c301b0@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: vir1036/pop.cais.com@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Mon, 16 Jul 2001 20:29:20 -0400 To: Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Looking down Cc: Nick NICHOLAS In-Reply-To: References: <995272268.557.39612.l10@yahoogroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" At 02:03 PM 07/16/2001 -0700, Nick NICHOLAS wrote: >On 16 Jul 2001 lojban@yahoogroups.com wrote: > > Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2001 18:10:31 -0400 > > From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" > > Subject: Re: Re: Looking down > > > >All well and good. But Jorge countersuggests {fa'a ni'a}. Will *that* > work? > > >The Book only says {fa'a} is not ego-centric --- that it involves > direction > > >towards some point other than the speaker. But does that mean it expresses > > >the directedness of an event, or is it still describing the imaginary > event > > >from that "point other than the speaker" to the bridi event? > > I think the former. > >If so, then fa'a does *not* follow the 'imaginary journey' model, and that >needs to be stated somewhere. Then I am misunderstanding your wording above or something, since I interpret the former as being the imaginary journey version of fa'a. fa'a says that the imaginary journey to the event goes from the reference TOWARDS the point other than the speaker and your second choice talks about moving FROM that point, which is exactly backwards. >It also needs to be resolved whether >'inwards' and 'outwards' also describe direction, or imaginary journey. >Because at the moment, unless this is resolved, *fa'a is undefined* (If we >don't know whether it indicates direction or location, saying it means >{farna} is not helpful.) It is direction in the same sense that ni'a/cnita is direction, except that fa'a would normally be used to indicate a direction not one of the canonical directions. Most often fo course, fa'a would be used as a tag, and fa'a da fasnu means that the event is in the direction of da from the reference. > > >Concretely, what do the following mean? > > >do fa'a bacru: > > > You speak towards something > > I vote for this one though I wouldn't use it > >Therefore, you would use {do fa'a catlu} to mean "you look towards >something"? The even of speaking seems more obviously directional in that the sound travels from speaker to that direction. Looking has a direction, but the event of looking seems to be co-located with the looker and not the path of the gaze. So do fa'a catlu tells me where catlu is and not where se catlu is. Of course it would be clearer to use fa'a in a relative phrase for that predicate. > For that matter, is it "towards something" or "towards the >speaker's here-and-now"? All other spatial/temporal tenses are by default >with respect to the here-and-now, Yes, the reference is the here and now. >but the Book explicitly says {fa'a} is not ego-centric, and that that job >is done by {zo'i} instead. What this means is that zo'i zo'e is thus equivalent to fa'a mipeca and the default zo'e for fa'a zo'e is na'ebomipeca > > >do fa'a ni'a bacru: > > > You speak downwards > > do fa'a le cnita ku bacru > >If {do zu'a le cnita be mi cu bacru} means the same as {do zu'a ni'a mi >bacru}, which means the same as {do ni'a zu'a >bacru} (accounting for the reversal of modals from the ego-center), I'm sorry, but your terminological use is confusing the hell out of me. To me ni'azu'a and zu'ani'a mean the same thing because going left and then down gets you to the same place as going down and then left. Examples 3.1 and 3.2 on page 218 say this and make it clear that the ordinary imaginary journey is from the speaker in the first direction and then in the second direction. zo'i is a movement towards the speaker which is kinda meaningless in the first position unless the reference is for some reason set elsewhere from the speaker. ASCII art time: mi <-- zo'i --> zi'o ^ | fa'a zi'o and fa'a are identical when starting from the speaker on an imaginary journey. >then I don't see what {fa'a le cnita} shouldn't be the same as some >combination >of {fa'a} and {ni'a}. fa'a le cnita means moving towards a point cnita from some unspecified position, which is typically the space time reference (usually the speaker), but need not be in a compound tense. zi'o le cnita means moving towards a point cnita from the speaker fa'ani'a means fa'a da ni'a, moving towards some point da, and then moving ni'a. > In particular, {do fa'a le cnita be da cu bacru} >should be the same as {do fa'a ni'a da bacru}, no? No, I do not see this >(Analogy is a >force you really don't want to get in the way of.) Which presumably is not >a million miles away from {do fa'a ni'a bacru}, mutatis mutandis. To play this game you need to start with fa'a da ni'a de, and I think you get a different answer. > > > You speak, while situated below something else (not the speaker) > > That would be "do ni'a bacru" > >Which means {fa'a} is not merely a non-egocentric locative. Whatever that means. >OK, that's something. > > > fa'ani'a is vague since we don't have a theory for multiple FAhAs. It > > means "in some specific direction and then downward" by the imaginary > > journey metaphor > >We do have a theory of multiple FAhA (obviously); it's the imaginary >journey model. Right. Bad wording, and I don't know what I meant. > What we don't have concretely is any notion of what {fa'a} >is used for, not only in combination with other FAhA, but even on its own. >If it really is directional rather than locative, and you can say >(redundantly) {mi >jarco fa'a le bloti} for "I point towards the boat", then {fa'a} doesn't >follow the imaginary journeys model, and is thus not described adequately >by the book. The whole FAhA scheme of course predates the imaginary journey, and the some of the words favored usage with mo'i while others the simple direction. We also knew that the space time reference could be set elsewhere from the speaker. fa'a allowed for motion in some particular direction not necessarily starting at the speaker and hence non-radial motion. Compound FAhA with imaginary journeys cover the most common cases of non-radial motion such as down from a point to the left. fa'a itself would almost always be used with a sumti because otherwise you don't know what direction it is. zi'o is nearly as vague except that you know that it is away from the speaker in some direction and would be used most often where it isn't that important which direction it is in as long as it is away from the speaker. >And this business about usage deciding is a canard. If noone knows what >{fa'a} is there for, noone will use it, and usage won't determine squat. I suspect that Cowan and I at least know what it is used for. To make life easy for you, it is safe to say that if it isn't clear to anyone else, it doesn't belong in introductory lessons. >We've already seen this in the responses to this question, in which everyone >went for a tanru to avoid using a tense at all. Contrary to what seems to >be prevailing ideology, there is still something to be said for prescription >filling in blanks in Lojban. I have no idea what that sentence means. >In any case, unless told explicitly not to, I will include in my exercises >the phrase {ko'a fa'a ni'a catlu} for "she looked down", making the >further assumption that {ni'a} after {fa'a} is relative to {ko'a} rather >than {mi}, because {fa'a} speaks of directions relative to someone other >than {mi}. I am willing to remove it from the exercises, but only if I am >told what {ko'a fa'a ni'a catlu} means *instead of* "she looked down" --- >which at the moment I haven't been told. If I'm told "usage will decide", >I'm going to make my usage contribute towards deciding it. My first comment on the lessons to you is: why are you even considering *any* exercise that is so uncertain that usage is not *completely* clear in what O thought were "introductory lessons"? These are questions for the back chapters of the big textbook, for the most advanced learners. Beginners probably won't even use FAhA at all, or will use only the simplest cases thereof. I think this means that if there are many more things where you are explorng the fringes of what has already been done with the language, then you are probably working at an order of magnitude too advanced a level for our target audience for a package zero lesson set. lojbab -- 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