Re: replies re. ka & mamta be ma

[ucleaar <ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk>]

Jorge:
> > > > > > Surely not most members of, say SE, LE, PA?
> > >                  %%%%%%%%%%%%
> > > i pau so'e cmima ji lei so'e cmima
> I don't understand the question.
> Most members taken individually or all of them at the same time?

Even the English isn't that perspicuous! I guess I meant {le
sohe cmima}, tho I can't actually see what practical difference
it makes.

I don't understand how you go from the Lojban question to the
English one. As I understood the L Q an appropriate answer
would be {a} or {e} & I've no idea what that'd mean.

> > > i zo ni'o ka'e basti zo i
> > Iff there's a new topic.
> i go'i  i ku'i noda javni le du'u makau cnino selsnu

Not so. The rule just hasn't been written down. Such a rule
would consist of a characterization of what counts as a new
topic. It wd of course be fuzzy, so using it between every
sentence shdn't actually be ungrammatical, but it would
affect the meaning - there wd be an incidental claim that
the following counts as a new topic. Not a neutral paraphrase
of {i}.

> > i di'e drata tadji le nu rivbi tu'a zo i
> > i mi xusra le du'u broda e le du'u brode e le du'u brodi
> > e le du'u brodo li'o

It's not truth-conditionally equivalent. Your circumlocution
is true if it is the case that you assert that broda and
brode, whereas {broda i broda} is true if it is the case
that broda and it is the case that brode. However, if you
replace xusra by some selbri meaning "be the case", then
your method works.

> > > i <<lu le jufra poi mi ca cusku ke'a li'u>> ka'e basti zo dei
> > They're not equivalent in meaning, I think, because (and I
> > may be wrong here) the expressing is located at a region of
> > time that includes the punctual present, but the expressing
> > needn't be located exactly at the punctual present.
> i ko pilno lu le jufra poi mi ca co'a [> caho] cusku ke'a li'u

I'll accept that as an adequate paraphrase in all probable
circumstances. It works because we don't utter several
sentences simultaneously.

I note with pleasure your non-literal use of {ko}. I very
much doubt anyone will have been admonishing you for this
flagrant breach of prescribed usage.

> > The meanings of {mi} and {ca} have to be defined in terms of
> > {dei}, so the circumlocution doesn't show {dei} isn't basic.
> i xu do jinvi le du'u ro cmavo ka'e se skicu sepi'o loi drata cmavo

No. But it works for some, including the deictic cmavo.
{pa} would do for 2-9.

> i go'i inaja no cmavo cu traji se nitcu

That's like saying neither of my kidneys is traji se nitcu.
I can survive on one kidney, but I very much traji nitcu
a kidney (i.e. {mi nitcu lo nu da *kidney* mi} [how come
there's no gismu for kidney??]).

Is the point you have (obscurely!) been trying to make
that sohe loi cmavo se nitcu, but na ku sohe lo cmavo se
nitcu? Are you also saying sohe lo cmavo ku na ku se
nitcu? (which is different, unless {sohe} means "over 50%")

Am I right in thinking you'd say I need suho loi kidney
but not suho lo kidney?

[Incidentally, any idea what {lo sohe broda} could possibly
mean?]

> > > i zo do'e joi zo poi ka'e basti zo fi'o
> > How would that work? (E.g. if a selbri has 3 fiho modals)
> i <<lu do'e da poi broda ku'o do'e de poi brode ku'o do'e di poi brodi
> li'u>> cu basti <<lu fi'o broda da fi'o brode de fi'o brodi di li'u>>

I defer to your greater knowledge of Lojban, but this is not
how I thought {fiho} works. In your version with {dohe}, the
semantic relationship of the sumti places filled by da, de
and di are not specified. I don't even know if they have to
be different sumti-places. It depends on whether
  klama fo da ku fo de .i
  klama bai da ku bai de
are grammatical. In contrast, I thought in {broda fiho brode da}, da is a sumti
 of broda, but not necessarily of brode, and
brode serves simply to identify the semantic relationship
between the broda selbri and the fiho sumti. Even if I was
wrong about this, and da is a sumti of brode, it seems to me
that the fiho version still gives a partial identification
of the sumti place, whereas the dohe version doesn't.

> > > i zo ca'e joi zo du ka'e basti zo goi
> > Maybe I'd misunderstood {goi}. I thought {X goi Y}
> > assigns the referent of X to Y, replacing any previous
> > referent Y previously had.
> Or the referent of Y to X, depending which is the assignable > variable.

But if they're both assignable variables, is there a priority
for which has its prior assignment overridden?

> To avoid the use of {goi}, you can simply use a lujvo
> meaning "assign",

I doubt it. The lujvo wd make a claim about the way the
world is, which is wholly different from assigning a value
to a variable. Maybe {cahe la djon. zo koha smuni} would
work, to force {koha} to refer to Djon. But you'd have to
have the cahe (in the performative sense Chris told me
about).

> or you can avoid pronouns altogether, which are nothing but > convenient
 optional add-ons anyway ;)

I don't think so. Assignable pronouns are virtually the only way to guarantee
 continued constancy of reference. If I keep
on using {le nanmu} there's no assurance I'm talking about
the same bloke, but if I use {koha} you can be 100% sure.

> i oi dukse nandu fa le nu cusku di'u bau la lojban

ije oinai zabna tohe nandu fa le nu mi jimpe

> > I wonder if you genuinely misunderstand me. If we have 2 ways
> > of saying the same thing, only one of them is motivated by
> > requirements of expressiveness.
> i pe'i zasti fa re tadji na.e ki'o tadji be le nu cusku roda

{kiho}? (I can't get much sense from {kihe, kihu, kiha}
either.) Kihe kihe kihe. Xe jimpe mi noda.

> i le ma tadji cu ckaji le ka jicmu

The more general method is more basic. But that's a separate
issue.

> > It may be that (and this is
> > true of SE/LE vs NOI) that neither is plainly more basic than
> > the other, but one of them is redundant.
> i ienai
> i tu'a le remoi ka'e se rivbi sepi'o loi clani jufra

I don't understand. Something concerning NOI can be avoided
by using long sentences - and this is a reason for your
disagreeing with me? Do you mean {remei}?

> i mu'a <<lu lo mlatu cu kalte lo smacu li'u>> ka'e se basti
> <<lu ko'a mlatu i ko'e smacu i ko'a kalte ko'e li'u>>
> i mi na pilno zo lo a zo poi
> i ku'i le remoi cu mutce selplixau

First, is it the case that unassigned {koha} will behave like
{da}? Second, try doing {ro nanmu nelci lei ninmu} without
using LE or POI. Third, how does this show why you disagree
with me (an attitude you adopt, I suspect, largely for the
pleasure of being disputatious)?

---
And