Subject: RE: [lojban] commands

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 4 Aug 2001 00:38:54 +0100

Craig:
> coi rodo
> 
> On the Portland Pattern Repository's wiki, it was observed that there is no
> way to express an imperative in lojban without using ko. Ko has no plural,

It basically already is plural. That is, it can refer to several addressees,
and it is always logically safer to think of sumti not explicitly marked
as singulars as referring to plurals.

> and so you can't say 'you all imperative' type constructions, a la
> 'Disperse, ye rebels, disperse!' Therefore, I have just proposed on the
> Lojban wiki a cmavo, xu'a, which would function like xu but make the bridi a
> command, allowing plural imperatives and statements like 'let's go.' Clearly
> we need commands other than ko, which is actually rather limited.

You can say {ro ko}. The usual rendering of your {xu'a} is {ei}.

> 1. Am I unknowingly inventing a way to do something that can really already
> be done?

Yes.

> 2. What do you think of this proposal, if I'm not?

Were you not, it'd be a good proposal. All the same, I think this proposing
of new but unnecessary cmavo is a useful learning strategy. It's very good
to work from what you want to say rather than to say what the language
makes it easy and obvious to say. I wish more Lojbanists worked that way.

--And.