Re: CPE: Corliss Lamont

["Jorge J. Llambias" <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:

>      So a "degro'u" is a fingerish
> kind of thick thing, whereas "tsudegji" is a thick kind of finger.
> Either works for thumb, then, I agree, but I'm still not quite sure I
> would treat them as symmetrical, because I would be surprized if a
> tsudegji was not in fact a finger, but not so surprized if a degro'u
> weren't, even though it might be.

I agree that they may not be equivalent. They may each have all kinds
of different connotations, but my point was that the x1 of the lujvo
was formed by the fusion of the x1 of each component. Other lujvo
are not formed like that.

> > There are some cases, like {ji'ervi'o}, where it seems at first
> > that both expansions can be made: something that is permanent
> > in being alive, or the symetrical one, something that is both alive
> > and permanent. But this latter form I find kind of twisted, ...
>
> Again, I don't see that.  Either it's a permanent kind of living,
> if it's the living you want to emphasize in the structure; or it's
> a living kind of permanence, if you want to emphasize the latter.
> I don't think "alive and permanent" is really an option unless you
> want to say so explicitly with a connective.  In this case, I think
> either one works fine.

I'm not sure whether we are disagreeing here. I understand {ji'ervi'o}
as {vitno be le ka jmive}: x1 is permanent in the property of
being alive, i.e. x1 is permanently alive, to put it more
idiomatically. Are you saying something different?

On the other hand, how do you explain {vi'orji'e}? (In Lojban, I mean.)
You can't just use a tanru {vitno jmive}, you have to define it more
precisely. What is the precise way in which {vitno} is modifying {jmive}
in order to form the lujvo? The only way I can think of is as {jmive
gi'e vitno be le ka jmive}. I'm not saying it is wrong, just that I
prefer the one with the simpler underlying form.

The same thing happens for example with "traji": Say we want to
translate "fastest". We have the two gismu:

sutra   x1 is fast in doing x2.
traji   x1 is superlative in property x2 among x3.

We now have two options:

sutrai [sutra traji]: x1 is fastest among x2 in doing x3.
rairsutra [traji sutra]: x1 is fastest in doing x2 among x3.

In the first case, the lujvo is explained as {traji be le ka sutra},
"superlative in being fast", whereas in the second one, it has to
be something like {sutra gi'e traji [be le ka sutra]}, "fast and
superlative (in being fast)". This is reflected also in the order
of the trailing arguments: if {traji} is the main component, then
its arguments come first, so "fastest among x2". If {sutra} is the
base then we have "fastest in doing x2". Both are possible, but
again, I find the first preferable.

co'o mi'e xorxes