Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Looking down

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 21:36:36 -0400

At 03:25 PM 07/18/2001 +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote:
>We all agree that most FAhA are locational. The point we
>were discussing was whether {fa'a} and {to'o} in particular
>followed that pattern as well.
>
>In that case {fa'a le tricu} is more or less meaningless, since
>everywhere in the universe (at least in the connected part) is on
>a line towards the tree, and the same goes for {to'o le tricu}.

There is a single starting point serving as the reference for fa'a and 
to'o. It can be a different one from the radial motion reference (though 
it could be the same point in which case the two are somewhat 
redundant). I could come up with examples of how I think all this is 
supposed to work, but as Nick said, I have higher priorities.

(My only comment on Nick's agreement with And that there needs to be 
further explication of some aspects of the language, is that there remains 
a baseline textbook to be written. That textbook will probably address any 
and all usage issues that people feel need to be covered in print for the 
baseline that are not part of the refgrammar. But no one including myself 
has time to write that textbook yet, even if we have the competence (which 
is questionable).

>And how do you indicate the orientation of the event?

With bridi. Not everything needs to be expressed modally. I think people 
are trying too hard to have everything that English can express briefly be 
equally brief in Lojban. It may be that most could be expressed in some 
brief manner when we really have all the idiosyncrasies worked out. But we 
aren't there yet; we need usage to show what we DO understand.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
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