Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Well I guess you do learn something new every day...

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 11:42:28 -0400

At 02:38 PM 8/3/01 +0000, Adam Raizen wrote:
>At any rate, as noted in the article, there's another way to do both
>of these. "le nei", "le se nei", etc. will work for the current bridi
>interpretation, and "le no'a", "le se no'a", etc. is basically
>equivalent to the main bridi interpretation of the "vo'a" series. The
>question is, in a sentence like "broda le nu brode le nu no'a", does
>the "no'a" refer to the brode-ing or the broda-ing? I really can't
>come up with a good reason why it would refer to the bridi exactly one
>level up and not the main bridi.

Imagine sentences nested multiple levels deep. You can use vo'a to refer 
quickly back to the main level, which seemed to occur often enough that it 
was worth chewing up 5 cmavo in a series for (and it may have existed back 
in JCB's version). You can use le nei for the current bridi (but ri/ra 
usually is good enough), but need a SE to get non-first places, and you can 
use le no'a, possibly with subscripts, to get anywhere in between the 
current bridi and the main bridi (and with a negative subscript, possibly 
also to refer inwards from the main bridi, though there is no usage and 
counting convention defined for same). Thus we cover all the possibilities 
with only 7 "new" cmavo, spending most of them for the possibility that is 
useful but for which we had no other way to do it (because if you are very 
nested, you may not know how many levels out to subscript no'a - umm, I 
guess no'axiro would work but ...)

> mi pensi le nu le nu no'a cu rinka le nu mi djuno
>
>Is it my thinking (likely) or being the cause (???) that makes me
>know.

The sentence claims that it is the "thinking about the thinking about", 
that is the cause.

> mi badri le nu do djuno le du'u no'a
>
>Does it mean that I'm sad that you know that I'm sad, or that you know
>that you know (that you know, etc.)

It means that I'm sad about the fact that you know I'm sad (about the fact 
that you know I'm sad ...)

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