Re: [lojban] A Discussion of the Lojban System of Place Structure

[selpa'i]

la .daniel. cu cusku di'e
> I'm Daniel Evans, and I figured that I would share my thoughts on the
> lojban place structure. I've been thinking about it for a few weeks, so
> I finally sat down today for about four hours and typed up a really
> rough paper about it.
>
> In a nutshell, I say it should be trashed. Thrown away. Why? Read the
> paper, and then tell me what you think :)

I just read it. The idea of using semantic roles to mark places is not
new; not only have I used it in one of my conlangs, the system you
propose is almost identical to the one present in Loglan! The only real
difference is that Loglan had a few more such "cases" than you are
proposing, and it didn't get rid of the FA and SE cmavo.

You seem to be complaining that the place structures are too hard to
keep track of. This is a common complaint among beginners, but I can
assure you that it gets easy after a while.

Instead of trashing the whole gimste, I think it makes more sense to
regularize the place structures. Remove odd-balls from groups of
otherwise perfectly parallel place structures, remove some of the
obscure places that never get used and only clog up lujvo, and so on.
This, I believe, will all get done in due time, so there is no reason to
panic.

mu'o mi'e la selpa'i

[la gleki]

On Wednesday, March 27, 2013 7:08:36 AM UTC+4, Daniel Evans wrote:

. ui coi ro do

I'm Daniel Evans, and I figured that I would share my thoughts on the lojban place structure. I've been thinking about it for a few weeks, so I finally sat down today for about four hours and typed up a really rough paper about it.

In a nutshell, I say it should be trashed. Thrown away. Why? Read the paper, and then tell me what you think :)

As selpa'i already mentioned this system once existed and it was called N-paradigm (http://loglan.org/Paradigms/paradigm_n.html). 

After that Lojban was created. It tried to fix that system by introducing BAI class of cmavo.

You mention Russian and as a native speaker of Russian I can wholeheartedly say that I hate it's case system.

Indeed, only 6 cases (or only 12 cases like in Loglan) lead to raising of terrible metaphors in the language.

Is it bad? For Lojban as a linguistic/logical/philosophical tool it's bad. For Lojban as a possible spoken language? I don't know.

After all we do have this case system even in the current Lojban.

e.g. {fa'a} roughly corresponds to Dative case.

We can say {mi dunda ti fa'a do} (I give this towards you) but it'll be kinda metaphor.

But yes, no one can stop you from speaking such Lojban.

so BAI can be used instead of FA.

As for SE they can be replaced with jai BAI, e.g.

{do jai fa'a dunda ti fai mi}  = you are given this-thing by me.

So your proposal is okay. Just continue learning the vocab and the grammar and we'll be happy to hear you speaking your own style of metaphorical Lojban.

Isn't it what most flexible languages in the world should allow for? ;)

I'll preface it (I did say this in the paper as all) with this: I don't think it's an awful system. Nor am I gonna be angry if everybody hates it. Keep in mind that I just blazed through a ten page paper, and didn't take a whole lot of time to revise my thoughts. I just wanted to get my thoughts down and organize them for myself. Doing so was best achieved by writing a paper about it, and that ended up being too much work to keep it to myself. I'm interested by what others think. It would be unbelievably cool if my ideas could be implemented, but I don't necessarily expect it.

It is attached to this post. Enjoy!

[Jacob Errington]

Something that bothers me about your paper, which as it stands is quite good, is that you only deal with an extremely small portion of Lojban. You don't touch at all on lujvo, which are what place structures are really for. In the case of purely compositional lujvo, e.g. kansi'u, the place structure lets you infer without any ambiguity or metaphor what the resulting place structure of the lujvo will be, based solely on the knowledge of the component gismu. As for memorizing the place structures of component gismu, one must simply realize that Lojban already *has* a case system. Simply put, rather than having named cases, we have numbered cases, and in many cases, there is a lot of parallelism between gismu of the same semantic category. 

Consider {morji}, {djuno}, {smadi}, {sruma}, {jijnu}, {jimpe}, {senpi}, {birti}, {krici}, and {jinvi}.

morji = x1 remembers fact x2 about x3

djuno = x1 knows fact x2 about x3 by epistemology x4

smadi = x1 guesses x2 about x3

jijnu = x1 intuits x2 about x3

jimpe = x1 understands fact x2 about x3

senpi = x1 doubts that x2 is true

birti = x1 is sure that x2 is true

krici = x1 believes that x2 is true about x3

jinvi = x1 opines that x2 is true about x3 on grounds x4

In the "knowledge" family, which above isn't even complete, one immediately notices the parallelism. This family along with the "family" family (family-relation = x1 is the <type of relationship> of x2 by bond/tie x3; e.g. bersa) and the foods and animals family (food/animal = x1 is a <food/animal> of type/species/etc. x2) make up an extremely large portion of the gismu list.

Now, I concede that even within a family, there are some exceptions, such as birti and senpi, which don't have an "about" place at all, or jinvi and djuno which are the only ones with an x4. Even in the food and animals family, there are some notable oddballs such as lanme ( = x1 is a sheep of species x2 of flock x3). However there being a difference in the number of places *usually* isn't that much of a big deal. If someone accidentally fills in an x3 of birti, any decent listener will understand what is meant, due to the overarching systematic nature of the family to which it belongs. On the other hand, when lujvo are made (according to the rules, that is) oddball places may unfortunately need to be included, which can lead to unexpected place structures in the resulting lujvo.

e.g. jboxlajivdunsi'u = x1 are equal in that they opine that lojban is bad for x2 by standard x3 on grounds of belief x4.

If one forgets that xlali has a standard place in the x3, then if they try to fill in the belief place of jinvi, things can get messy.

Still, I don't know how your proposed case system would cooperate with lujvo (or would it simply drop lujvo from the language?) So I can't say that the status quo is any better or worse.

Finally, semantic families don't always work. {cpedu}, {minde}, and {picki} are in the same family, I'd say, but have place structures divergent in rather irritating ways.

cpedu = x1 requests x2 of x3 in manner x4

minde = x1 orders x2 to x3

picki = x1 begs x2 to x3

However, if one takes into account the emphasis difference, (when ordering something to happen, the person whom is ordered is more important, and therefore moves closer to the front,) then it becomes easier to remember. Also, cpedu2 being the action requested is more useful for translating "He asked for a glass of water." Indeed, in that case, the person of whom that action (giving a glass of water) is far less important (it could be anyone, so in truth, we're just dropping the place entirely by context).

That being said, I strongly push towards efforts to regularize the gismu list in order to make the numeric case system more self-consistent. One of Lojban's major issues is a lack of self-consistency, as pointed out by gleki in his thread about "four different vocabularies." However, the existence of this multiple vocabularies is not a problem intrinsic to the nature of Lojban, and is thus a whole other can of worms when contrasted with the issues with place structure.

In sum, I believe that trashing place structure is overall a bad idea. Place structure is central to Lojban's ideology, in my opinion, and removing it from Lojban would be like taking the Lojban out of Lojban. Named case systems are used in other conlangs, and if those are more pleasant to you, then perhaps those you should try those out, too. Still, Lojban remains extremely interesting. It was not made to be easy, and complaints that its cornerstones are complicated are of little weight. As you learn more, you will see that there is a lot of regularity, and that this language still remains immensely more simple than a multitude of others.

.i mi'e la tsani mu'o

[la gleki]

On Wednesday, March 27, 2013 8:52:52 PM UTC+4, tsani wrote:

Something that bothers me about your paper, which as it stands is quite good, is that you only deal with an extremely small portion of Lojban. You don't touch at all on lujvo, which are what place structures are really for. In the case of purely compositional lujvo, e.g. kansi'u, the place structure lets you infer without any ambiguity or metaphor what the resulting place structure of the lujvo will be, based solely on the knowledge of the component gismu. As for memorizing the place structures of component gismu, one must simply realize that Lojban already *has* a case system. Simply put, rather than having named cases, we have numbered cases, and in many cases, there is a lot of parallelism between gismu of the same semantic category. 

Consider {morji}, {djuno}, {smadi}, {sruma}, {jijnu}, {jimpe}, {senpi}, {birti}, {krici}, and {jinvi}.

morji = x1 remembers fact x2 about x3

djuno = x1 knows fact x2 about x3 by epistemology x4

smadi = x1 guesses x2 about x3

jijnu = x1 intuits x2 about x3

jimpe = x1 understands fact x2 about x3

senpi = x1 doubts that x2 is true

birti = x1 is sure that x2 is true

krici = x1 believes that x2 is true about x3

jinvi = x1 opines that x2 is true about x3 on grounds x4

In the "knowledge" family, which above isn't even complete, one immediately notices the parallelism. This family along with the "family" family (family-relation = x1 is the <type of relationship> of x2 by bond/tie x3; e.g. bersa) and the foods and animals family (food/animal = x1 is a <food/animal> of type/species/etc. x2) make up an extremely large portion of the gismu list.

Now, I concede that even within a family, there are some exceptions, such as birti and senpi, which don't have an "about" place at all, or jinvi and djuno which are the only ones with an x4. Even in the food and animals family, there are some notable oddballs such as lanme ( = x1 is a sheep of species x2 of flock x3). However there being a difference in the number of places *usually* isn't that much of a big deal. If someone accidentally fills in an x3 of birti, any decent listener will understand what is meant, due to the overarching systematic nature of the family to which it belongs. On the other hand, when lujvo are made (according to the rules, that is) oddball places may unfortunately need to be included, which can lead to unexpected place structures in the resulting lujvo.

e.g. jboxlajivdunsi'u = x1 are equal in that they opine that lojban is bad for x2 by standard x3 on grounds of belief x4.

If one forgets that xlali has a standard place in the x3, then if they try to fill in the belief place of jinvi, things can get messy.

Still, I don't know how your proposed case system would cooperate with lujvo (or would it simply drop lujvo from the language?) So I can't say that the status quo is any better or worse.

Finally, semantic families don't always work. {cpedu}, {minde}, and {picki} are in the same family, I'd say, but have place structures divergent in rather irritating ways.

cpedu = x1 requests x2 of x3 in manner x4

minde = x1 orders x2 to x3

picki = x1 begs x2 to x3

However, if one takes into account the emphasis difference, (when ordering something to happen, the person whom is ordered is more important, and therefore moves closer to the front,) then it becomes easier to remember. Also, cpedu2 being the action requested is more useful for translating "He asked for a glass of water." Indeed, in that case, the person of whom that action (giving a glass of water) is far less important (it could be anyone, so in truth, we're just dropping the place entirely by context).

That being said, I strongly push towards efforts to regularize the gismu list in order to make the numeric case system more self-consistent. One of Lojban's major issues is a lack of self-consistency, as pointed out by gleki in his thread about "four different vocabularies."

I started that thread with a completely different complaint, namely ....4 different but parallel sets of words/morphemes for memorising.

 

However, the existence of this multiple vocabularies is not a problem intrinsic to the nature of Lojban, and is thus a whole other can of worms when contrasted with the issues with place structure.

In sum, I believe that trashing place structure is overall a bad idea.

Not at all. It *is* possible to create a language where every gismu will have not more than two places. May be Lojban being spoken by more people will try to change into such thing. Whether such dialect of Lojban will be more easy to learn or not is another question.

Place structure is central to Lojban's ideology, in my opinion, and removing it from Lojban would be like taking the Lojban out of Lojban.

mi zmadu do lo ni barda (I exceed you in property of being big) => mi poi zilkarbi do cu barda (I compared to you is big).

This is how the third place might be removed by those who hate it.

 

Named case systems are used in other conlangs, and if those are more pleasant to you, then perhaps those you should try those out, too.

Even not touching the previous example nobody can remove metaphors from our speech. If Daniel wants to try those in Lojban why stop  'em? 

[John E Clifford]

Lojban, as usual, strives for the most of all possible worlds.  Thus, for arguments to predicates, it has a place system -- several, in fact -- and a case system of staggering complexity.  The problem -- if it is one -- with the place system, is that the places are not uniform.  To be sure, the first place is generally the subject, as that would be informally understood, and the second is often the direct object (ditto).  From there on (and even there occasionally) the places wander every which way, although there are some families of concepts which give rise to predicates all of which share most of the same places in the same order -- with shocking exceptions and occasional late additions.  Then there are at least two ways to change the surface order of the arguments while keeping the original place information.  In addition, there are the prepositions (mainly, but far from exclusively BAI) that directly convey the information buried in the places of particular predicates and which can be used instead of or in addition to many positional roles.  I am not sure that all subject and direct object notions are covered by these critters, but I know that the most common are -- and are frequently used.  Lojban does not have -- and never will, pretty obviously -- affix cases, but the reputed psychological differences between prepositions and affixes is not significant here (I think).  It is worth noting, however, that most predicates co-occur with only a limited number of prepositions, usually some involved already in their specifications.  There are also an array of prepositions that seem to occur with just about any predicate, and may be deserving of special attention.  As for an optimal system (not one I would propose at this point for Lojban), each predicate would have one or two defined places and a list of likely special prepositions (the later places or ones thought of for those places).  The defined places would be the expected ones, subject and object in their predicate-relative senses, and everything else would be added explicitly.  Several people seem to write this way alrady.

---

From: la gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, March 27, 2013 12:17 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] A Discussion of the Lojban System of Place Structure

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[iesk]

Hello.

Your paper is interesting. If it is intended as a proposal for Lojban grammar (or Russian grammar ;) ), then I think its flaw is that it is simply too late, since the grammar is fixed beyond having parts of it 'trashed' simply because of better (xamgu3?) solutions being found. Especially, predicate grammar and place structures and so on are very much the Lojban USP, judging from all the buzz made about them ;).

Its not as if nobody had ever thought about it, BTW. I found this, eg, maybe it is interesting for you: http://balance.wiw.org/~jkominek/lojban/9106/msg00091.html (There is more in the archives, this came up when I searched for 'case tags'.)

Of course, you could 'fork' a project from Loglan (Lojban) according to your paper.

-iesk

[Jonathan Jones]

On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 11:17 AM, la gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:

 <snip>

mi zmadu do lo ni barda (I exceed you in property of being big) => mi poi zilkarbi do cu barda (I compared to you is big).

ka, not ni. ni is quantity, ka is property.

--
mu'o mi'e .aionys.

.i.e'ucai ko cmima lo pilno be denpa bu .i doi.luk. mi patfu do zo'o
(Come to the Dot Side! Luke, I am your father. :D )

[Jacob Errington]

On 27 March 2013 16:52, Jonathan Jones <eye...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 11:17 AM, la gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:

 <snip>

mi zmadu do lo ni barda (I exceed you in property of being big) => mi poi zilkarbi do cu barda (I compared to you is big).

ka, not ni. ni is quantity, ka is property.

Although this is completely unrelated to the thread -- then again so is your reply, too -- the abstraction suggestions in the gimste are not prescriptive. (You can dig around the archives to see that Lojbab himself has said this.) 

Some of us have adopted a system of abstractions that is more self-consistent, and indeed, that system puts a quantity abstractor in zmadu3. What gleki said isn't wrong; it simply doesn't conform to your style of Lojban.

[Jonathan Jones]

On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 4:14 PM, Jacob Errington <nict...@gmail.com> wrote:

On 27 March 2013 16:52, Jonathan Jones <eye...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Mar 27, 2013 at 11:17 AM, la gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:

 <snip>

mi zmadu do lo ni barda (I exceed you in property of being big) => mi poi zilkarbi do cu barda (I compared to you is big).

ka, not ni. ni is quantity, ka is property.

Although this is completely unrelated to the thread -- then again so is your reply, too -- the abstraction suggestions in the gimste are not prescriptive.

I know this. I'm a big proponent of same.
 

(You can dig around the archives to see that Lojbab himself has said this.) 

Some of us have adopted a system of abstractions that is more self-consistent, and indeed, that system puts a quantity abstractor in zmadu3. What gleki said isn't wrong; it simply doesn't conform to your style of Lojban.

Actually, no. It is wrong, because he is translating ni as property. "(I exceed you in property of being big)". I wasn't saying he needed to put a property there, I was saying that ni is /not/ a property., it's a quantity.

.i mi'e la tsani mu'o 

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[la gleki]

 

mi zmadu do lo ni barda (I exceed you in property of being big) => mi poi zilkarbi do cu barda (I compared to you is big).

ka, not ni. ni is quantity, ka is property.

Although this is completely unrelated to the thread -- then again so is your reply, too -- the abstraction suggestions in the gimste are not prescriptive.

I know this. I'm a big proponent of same.
 

(You can dig around the archives to see that Lojbab himself has said this.) 

Some of us have adopted a system of abstractions that is more self-consistent, and indeed, that system puts a quantity abstractor in zmadu3. What gleki said isn't wrong; it simply doesn't conform to your style of Lojban.

Actually, no. It is wrong, because he is translating ni as property. "(I exceed you in property of being big)". I wasn't saying he needed to put a property there, I was saying that ni is /not/ a property., it's a quantity.

Yes, I was abviously wrong. .i .u'u

The correct translation 

mi zmadu do lo ni barda (I exceed you in quantity of being big) 

=> mi poi zilkarbi do cu barda (I compared to you is big).

(However, I'm not sure if the second sentence is about properties of qunatities).

[Ian Johnson]

That {mi poi zilkarbi} thing gets into the "as" issue that we had previously; I'm pretty skeptical as to whether it's appropriate.

mi'e la latro'a mu'o

[la gleki]

On Thursday, March 28, 2013 8:14:45 AM UTC+4, Latro wrote:

That {mi poi zilkarbi} thing gets into the "as" issue that we had previously; I'm pretty skeptical as to whether it's appropriate.

There is also another solution. {mi zmadu do sekai lo ni barda} 

[Ian Johnson]

I don't think you can ckaji a ni...

mi'e la latro'a mu'o

[Jacob Errington]

I just find it silly that rather than use place structure, a simple 3-ary structure, we're introducing relative clauses, and lujvo, and BAI... "Let's make things more complicated to make them simpler." It seems to counterintuitive.

[la gleki]

On Thursday, March 28, 2013 4:48:27 PM UTC+4, tsani wrote:

I just find it silly that rather than use place structure, a simple 3-ary structure, we're introducing relative clauses, and lujvo, and BAI... "Let's make things more complicated to make them simpler." It seems to counterintuitive.

Well, but if some want it who can stop them?

Anyway it's still Lojban. Why not search for new styles?

[la gleki]

On Wednesday, March 27, 2013 7:08:36 AM UTC+4, Daniel Evans wrote:

I just wanted to get my thoughts down and organize them for myself. Doing so was best achieved by writing a paper about it, and that ended up being too much work to keep it to myself. I'm interested by what others think. It would be unbelievably cool if my ideas could be implemented, but I don't necessarily expect it.

It is attached to this post. Enjoy!

Several notes not necessarily on Lojban but on the understanding of other languages.

The phrase "“Is it possible to assign this system to any current or future lojban word without 

making exceptions? That is, is this system complete enough to handle the full range of human thought

and communication?” My answer is that I do not know. However, it works for Russian and many, many

other languages – why would it fail here?"

The answer is that there is no such system in Russian. You patched Russian case system, namely dropped Prepositional Case.

Secondly, Russian can't express all sumti places using only declension. The full system is the following

"verb + [preposition + ] noun/pronoun +case "

This system both works for English and Russian.

Namely, in English

"go, with , they  => to go with them"

Here we attach the preposition to the verb, then add a pronoun "they" that is declined into "them". There are two cases in English, "nominative" and "oblique" (terms may vary).

As in Russian there are 6 cases some prepositions may work with more than one case. So e.g.

с ними [s nimi] = with them (the glossing is "with they-INSTRUMENTAL")

с них [s nikh] = from them (the glossing is "with they-GENITIVE").

As for the rest of the paper ambiguities raised by practice of speaking such language will be obvious. e.g.

"tavla: NOM talks/speaks to DAT  about subject LOC in language INS"

Locative here would rather mean the place where you are talking rather than the subject of what you talking about. Notice that both Russian and English use the same preposition "about" ("о" in Russian) to describe the subject of the talk. However (ke'u), prepositions were ignored in this system.

[MorphemeAddict]

IIRC, Loglan (and then Lojban) used place structures instead of prepositions or case endings because cases and/or prepositions could not unambiguously accommodate all the meanings necessary. 

stevo

On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 11:08 PM, <daniel...@gmail.com> wrote:

. ui coi ro do

I'm Daniel Evans, and I figured that I would share my thoughts on the lojban place structure. I've been thinking about it for a few weeks, so I finally sat down today for about four hours and typed up a really rough paper about it.

In a nutshell, I say it should be trashed. Thrown away. Why? Read the paper, and then tell me what you think :)

I'll preface it (I did say this in the paper as all) with this: I don't think it's an awful system. Nor am I gonna be angry if everybody hates it. Keep in mind that I just blazed through a ten page paper, and didn't take a whole lot of time to revise my thoughts. I just wanted to get my thoughts down and organize them for myself. Doing so was best achieved by writing a paper about it, and that ended up being too much work to keep it to myself. I'm interested by what others think. It would be unbelievably cool if my ideas could be implemented, but I don't necessarily expect it.

It is attached to this post. Enjoy!

--

[John E Clifford]

And places can?  Surely, if so, then prepositions or affix cases can.  But it is unlikely that any system can unambiguously cover all possible relations; the present one surely does not.

---

From: MorphemeAddict <lyt...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2013 9:10 AM

Subject: Re: [lojban] A Discussion of the Lojban System of Place Structure

[MorphemeAddict]

Yes, places can, because each place of each selbri can be defined uniquely. 

stevo

[la gleki]

On Friday, March 29, 2013 6:33:31 PM UTC+4, clifford wrote:

And places can?  Surely, if so, then prepositions or affix cases can.

If we split all gismu to gismu having only one/two places then the number of gismu will increase correspondingly but otherwise it'll work.

[John E Clifford]

And so can each preposition/case.

---

From: MorphemeAddict <lyt...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Friday, March 29, 2013 11:37 AM

[v4hn]

On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 11:59:54AM -0700, John E Clifford wrote:
> From: MorphemeAddict <lyt...@gmail.com>

>
> > Yes, places can, because each place of each selbri can be defined uniquely. 
>

> And so can each preposition/case.
>

Sure, but it probably doesn't make sense to define a preposition for klama1,
one for klama2, one for citka2, one for gerku2 and all the other places out there.

If places do not group well together, it simply doesn't make sense to have
propositions for them - although you can do that if you like. Lojban even
"kind of" supports you with {fi'o}.


v4hn

[John E Clifford]

The proof of the point, of course.  But it still does not show in either case that there might be a complete set of unambiguous places/cases.

---

From: v4hn <m...@v4hn.de>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, March 29, 2013 6:20 PM

Subject: Re: [lojban] A Discussion of the Lojban System of Place Structure

[la gleki]

On Saturday, March 30, 2013 3:20:30 AM UTC+4, v4hn wrote:

On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 11:59:54AM -0700, John E Clifford wrote:
> From: MorphemeAddict <lyt...@gmail.com>
>
> > Yes, places can, because each place of each selbri can be defined uniquely. 
>
> And so can each preposition/case.
>

Sure, but it probably doesn't make sense to define a preposition for klama1,
one for klama2, one for citka2, one for gerku2 and all the other places out there.

Doesn't make sense but possible.

If allow not more than 2 places then it might make sense for a language.

For gerku2 we have fi'o jutsi.

[la gleki]

On Saturday, March 30, 2013 9:29:19 AM UTC+4, la gleki wrote:

On Saturday, March 30, 2013 3:20:30 AM UTC+4, v4hn wrote:

On Fri, Mar 29, 2013 at 11:59:54AM -0700, John E Clifford wrote:
> From: MorphemeAddict <lyt...@gmail.com>
>
> > Yes, places can, because each place of each selbri can be defined uniquely. 
>
> And so can each preposition/case.
>

Sure, but it probably doesn't make sense to define a preposition for klama1,
one for klama2

Wait, what? We do have a preposition for klama1 and klama2.

[Daniel Evans]

Wow! Wasn't quite expecting this to blow up, haha. Thanks for reading!

I realize this morning that my paper did seem a little pushy, but I think I was just gettin into it. I would agree that the central problem is a lack of consistency. With such inconsistency, my desire for an easier way to keep track of what's going on in a sentence crops up. I also stand by my claim that learning any given new word would be easier if there was some way to mark what a sumti was doing in a sentence other than being in the nth spot. Like I said, there's nothing "wrong" with place structures. In my opinion, just a little "off".

Doesn't mean I'm suddenly totally disinterested in lojban, though! I wish I had the time to start getting into it again. University is a timesink!

[Daniel Evans]

Also, reading your replies and arguments for the retention of the current system makes me see that it isn't so bad. So, I guess, thanks!

[MorphemeAddict]

The predicate-argument structure of Lojban is one of its defining characteristics. Getting rid of it would destroy the language. 

stevo

On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 11:38 AM, Daniel Evans <daniel...@gmail.com> wrote:

Also, reading your replies and arguments for the retention of the current system makes me see that it isn't so bad. So, I guess, thanks!

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