jbonunsla 2012: Post #2

[Robin Lee Powell]

This afternoon I did the story of the jbocifnus' birth, mostly in
Lojban, mostly recorded for posterity.

We played Cards Against Humanity, partially translated.

People met the jbocifnu.

We had some brief discussions about weirdnesses in the language that
came up during story time.

I can't remember what else.

-Robin

--
http://singinst.org/ : Our last, best hope for a fantastic future.
.i ko na cpedu lo nu stidi vau loi jbopre .i danfu lu na go'i li'u .e
lu go'i li'u .i ji'a go'i lu na'e go'i li'u .e lu go'i na'i li'u .e
lu no'e go'i li'u .e lu to'e go'i li'u .e lu lo mamta be do cu sofybakni li'u

[la .lindar.]

From my notes (brief summary to be expanded perhaps never):

{tolcliva} is crap and you pretty much should never use it.

Agree to disagree on (or attempt to deprecate, or just say 'fuck it' regarding) the weird vowel letterals.

Agree to disagree on whether time can be {clani} or {barda}.

We solved the "units per unit" issue with {dikni}, but may still have other issues.

Kill with fire all of the 'by standard' places in favour of a BAI that does the same thing.

If we don't do the latter, switch the x3 and x4 of {mitre} so the standard is in the x3 like every other measurement.

{muvgau} is perfectly acceptable for "moving my arms", but we still don't have a word for "position" (re: Robin's baby words post about changing position/stance).

Stuff we need to discuss tomorrow:

latro'a/tsani's idea of how {ka} works.

JVS sucks hairy balls (I'll get into more detail)

Stuff we need to do tomorrow:

Play Microscope (or whatever it is)

Play Xendo

Record everybody doing one tongue-twister (I need this for a Lojban promotional video)

Get naked and oily.

...okay, maybe not that last one.

We have around 3.5 hours of video so far, which is going to take me for freaking ever to edit.

Expect episodes and not one big thing.

[la gleki]

On Sunday, July 8, 2012 11:44:52 AM UTC+4, la .lindar. wrote:

From my notes (brief summary to be expanded perhaps never):

{tolcliva} is crap and you pretty much should never use it.

Agree to disagree on (or attempt to deprecate, or just say 'fuck it' regarding) the weird vowel letterals.

Agree to disagree on whether time can be {clani} or {barda}.

We solved the "units per unit" issue with {dikni}, but may still have other issues.

Kill with fire all of the 'by standard' places in favour of a BAI that does the same thing.

Pardon? Did you succeed in killing them?

[Jacob Errington]

.i .o'a mi se srana lo jbonunsla vau zo'o
.i zo tolcliva to du'i zo tolyli'a toi jai se jinvi mi fai lo ka cizra
gi'enai mabla .i ju'o zo klamu'o matpi be so'ida zmadu

The problem with time is that it doesn't exist in Lojban. We just use
events as proxies for their durations, which isn't *bad* per se, it's
just a bit odd. We give equal interpretation to {ze'a lo mentu be li
pano} and {ze'a lo nu do citka} considering that the x1 of both of
those descriptions is of the type "event".

I'm interested in how dikni helps to solve the "units per unit" issue
(which latro'a and I solved using eperimentals).

"by standard" isn't too great, but I think rather than killing them
all with fire that they should be replaced with possibly more useful
variants. It came up in #lojban when talking with Byron about {dukse},
in particular dukse3. It seems like something being too much in some
property *only* makes sense when there's either some reference
frame/standard/effect.

Indeed JVS sucks; anyone up for making JVS2 ? ;)

As for what I think about ka... hrm. I've got this page on the wiki
that I wrote some months ago; it still reflects what I think to a
pretty decent degree. In fact, one thing that I don't agree with
anymore is what ce'u subscripting does. In particular, I more strongly
advocate the use of ce'ai. Anyway, link:
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/Tsani's+Interpretations%3A+Abstractors .

Stance, and the relevant example, "you went from sitting to standing,"
is just binxo, I'd say. {.i do binxo lo ka zukte nagi'e sanli} but
chances are, we can imply that someone who acquires the property of
standing implicitly loses the property of sitting, simplifying like
so: {.i do binxo lo ka sanli}. I personally don't think that binxo
implies volition though ({lo srasu cu binxo lo ka crino}) maybe using
zukte is more appropriate: {.i do zukte lo ka binxo lo ka sanli} or a
tanru simplification: {.i do zukte co binxo co sanli}. But, we can
also just let volition be implicit, too. Anyway, the position of an
object or anything is just lo ka makau selzva ce'u. I don't really see
what this "stance" thing is about.

mu'o mi'e la tsani

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[selpa'i]

coi
If you don't mind, I'd like to comment on each point, knowing well that
a lot comes down to opinion:

Am 08.07.2012 09:44, schrieb la .lindar.:
> >From my notes (brief summary to be expanded perhaps never):
>
> {tolcliva} is crap and you pretty much should never use it.

How is it crap? Is this just your (sg.) opinion or did you (pl.) come to
an agreement about it? You gotta be more specific than "it's crap, you
can't use it". Both tolcliva and mo'u klama / klamu'o have their place.

> Agree to disagree on (or attempt to deprecate, or just say 'fuck it'
> regarding) the weird vowel letterals.

Some people don't like them, but I find them prettier than .a'y .e'y
.i'y .o'y .u'y. The obvious disadvantage is that .abu is two words so zo
can't quote it.

> Agree to disagree on whether time can be {clani} or {barda}.

Time can be clani. Time has a dimension and anything with a dimension
can be long or short in that dimension.

> We solved the "units per unit" issue with {dikni}, but may still have
> other issues.

What's the proposed solution?

> Kill with fire all of the 'by standard' places in favour of a BAI that
> does the same thing.

I strongly disagree. There are a good number of "by standard" places
that are used a lot, and I don't want to use BAI to get access to them.
xamgu3 and dukse3 are two very common examples.

> Stuff we need to discuss tomorrow:

One thing you might want to look at is how some gismu have built-in jai
while others don't.
Compare for example bebna, which has a jai'd x1 where the x2 is
basically a fai-place, and fenki, which doesn't. This inconsistency
slows down the learning process to some degree. Does anybody else think
this could be improved?

> latro'a/tsani's idea of how {ka} works.
> JVS sucks hairy balls (I'll get into more detail)

It has some bugs, but it's free and works. Sure it could be better, but
I wouldn't be so harsh.


mu'o mi'e la selpa'i

--
.i pau mi me ma .i pa mai ko mi jungau la'e di'u
.i ba bo mi va'o lo nu nelci lo nu me ma kau cu barkla
.i va'o lo nu na nelci cu denpa ti lo nu mi drata

[Jacob Errington]

coi

On 8 July 2012 08:44, selpa'i <sel...@gmx.de> wrote:
> coi
> If you don't mind, I'd like to comment on each point, knowing well that a
> lot comes down to opinion:
>
> Am 08.07.2012 09:44, schrieb la .lindar.:
>
>> >From my notes (brief summary to be expanded perhaps never):
>>
>> {tolcliva} is crap and you pretty much should never use it.
>
>
> How is it crap? Is this just your (sg.) opinion or did you (pl.) come to an
> agreement about it? You gotta be more specific than "it's crap, you can't
> use it". Both tolcliva and mo'u klama / klamu'o have their place.
>
>
>> Agree to disagree on (or attempt to deprecate, or just say 'fuck it'
>> regarding) the weird vowel letterals.
>
>
> Some people don't like them, but I find them prettier than .a'y .e'y .i'y
> .o'y .u'y. The obvious disadvantage is that .abu is two words so zo can't
> quote it.
>
>
>> Agree to disagree on whether time can be {clani} or {barda}.
>
>
> Time can be clani. Time has a dimension and anything with a dimension can be
> long or short in that dimension.
>
>

In my opinion, the problem with saying that time can be clani is that
you're saying that all events can by clani, by virtue of time simply
being events; why is it that using clani would only reflect the
temporal dimension rather than any of the other three dimensions of an
event? In particular, {ze'a lo clani} is essentially the same as {ze'a
lo fasnu poi clani}. Now yes, {clani} carries the implication that the
object (or event in this case) is relatively long it its longest
dimension. If we could compare the temporal dimension with the spatial
dimensions, we could probably derive some kind of logic allowing us to
discern whether or not that longest dimension is the temporal one or
not, but it seems like we can justify current usage (stuff like {ze'u
lo clani}) by saying that the longest dimension of an event is
implicitly its temporal dimension. That however has the annoying side
effect of making it impossible to refer to one of the spatial
dimensions.

One interpretation of {citno} is that it simply refers to events,
rather than to the "duration of objects" which doesn't make very much
sense. Let me get this straight: I'm not invalidating {do citno}. I'm
just saying that if we peek at the definition, it says "[relatively
short in elapsed duration]" which seems like an extremely important
characteristic. Maybe we can use citno to get at that temporal tordu
and laldo/tolci'o to refer to that temporal clani.

>> We solved the "units per unit" issue with {dikni}, but may still have
>> other issues.
>
>
> What's the proposed solution?
>
>
>> Kill with fire all of the 'by standard' places in favour of a BAI that
>> does the same thing.
>
>
> I strongly disagree. There are a good number of "by standard" places that
> are used a lot, and I don't want to use BAI to get access to them. xamgu3
> and dukse3 are two very common examples.
>
>
>> Stuff we need to discuss tomorrow:
>
> One thing you might want to look at is how some gismu have built-in jai
> while others don't.
> Compare for example bebna, which has a jai'd x1 where the x2 is basically a
> fai-place, and fenki, which doesn't. This inconsistency slows down the
> learning process to some degree. Does anybody else think this could be
> improved?
>
>
>> latro'a/tsani's idea of how {ka} works.
>> JVS sucks hairy balls (I'll get into more detail)
>
> It has some bugs, but it's free and works. Sure it could be better, but I
> wouldn't be so harsh.
>
>
> mu'o mi'e la selpa'i
>
> --
> .i pau mi me ma .i pa mai ko mi jungau la'e di'u
> .i ba bo mi va'o lo nu nelci lo nu me ma kau cu barkla
> .i va'o lo nu na nelci cu denpa ti lo nu mi drata
>
>
>
>

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "lojban" group.

[la .lindar.]

Oh dear gods people! They were notes, not commandments handed down from the gods.

I was mostly marking it down here because Robin asked me to.

I *promise* you that we're not having a mini ACTA in here about Lojban.

There are going to be lots of videos and shit posted up after the event.

You will all get to have your say. You can all pitch a fit once that's done.

Regarding my previous notes:

1. "Your friend is in the middle of leaving and walks back into the room to get his keys." - pretty much the only time to use {tolcliva}, otherwise {mo'u klama}. I personally really wish people wouldn't try to encode time-tense into the selbri as it's stylistically shitty and reeks of tense-conjugation in natlangs.

2. It's all opinion and we're going to discuss it more later once we actually start making these changes, which won't happen until AFTER the CLL is done.

3. Robin and I had a stylistic disagreement and we had agreed to not nitpick if he says {barda temci} and I say {clani temci}.

4. Ask Byron/Robin. I think it was like {mi dikni lo nu catra lo ka catra le nintadni kei lo cacra be li re} or {.i gonai do dunda le jdini mi gi mi dikni lo ka catra le pinfu be mi kei lo mentu be li cino}. Also, STOP MAKING NEW CMAVO. Use the existing language that we have before you come up with superfluous nonsense. Some of the words you've invented are perfectly valid and necessary, but when you're solution to any problem perceived, new or old, is to coin a new cmavo, you're clearly doing something wrong. Stop it, please. Present evidence that it *can't* be done with the existing vocabulary and grammar before you invent new words, because it looks like "Hey, let's coin a new cmavo for this!" is your first solution, otherwise we're just going to ignore it.

5. It's a discussion. We haven't done anything yet.

6. That...

7. Still need ideas on this one.

Stuff we need to discuss tomorrow:

1. Still am going to do that at some point.

2. Y'all read way too much into things. I didn't say, "Discuss re-coding or replacing JVS.". If you want JVS2 then go code it and stop waiting on us to fix everything. I can promise you that JVS2 is not going to get an ounce of our attention until after CLL 1.1 is done. You are all welcome to accelerate either process using your own time and energy. I was going to bring up simple ways to manage it better and what our existing policies are on modifying/cleaning up entries and adding examples.

*raaaaaaeeeeeeeeeeeg*

tl;dr Calm down. We're not breaking the language without you. Just be patient.

[Jacob Errington]

I know, I know, Lindar. I do trust you all not to secretly redesign
the language over the course of one weekend. Also, I (and presumably
latro'a) don't expect any of you to like whatever cmavo we come up
with. They're usually unnecessary, but it's amusing to reflect of
whatever might possibly find its way into the language.

As for tense-encoded selbri, there're *gismu* that do this, so it's
already a part of the language. That is, if {facki} isn't {co'a djuno}
then I don't know what it is. {klamu'o} is a perfectly decent jvajvo
(mulkla, on the other hand, AWFUL, but hopefully no one will ever use
that).

FWIW, if someone should ask me {.i lo fasnu cu clani je'i barda} I'd
answer {na'i}.

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[Robin Lee Powell]

> > Kill with fire all of the 'by standard' places in favour of a BAI that
> > does the same thing.
>
> Pardon? Did you succeed in killing them?

We were just noodling; it seems like there should be a "by standard"
BAI or something, but I'd be unlikely to break a lot of gismu in
response to having that (because an extra place nobody uses doesn't
do any harm most of the time).

[Robin Lee Powell]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style ,
people, seriously.

On Sun, Jul 08, 2012 at 04:55:54AM -0400, Jacob Errington wrote:
> I'm interested in how dikni helps to solve the "units per unit" issue
> (which latro'a and I solved using eperimentals).

{dikni} as such is a little weird because it's not about events, but
something like:

mi dikni lo ka re roi klama kei lo mentu be li mu

> I don't really see what this "stance" thing is about.

There is a property of objects that has to do with arrangement of
their parts, in general; what you gave was a way to talk about
entering particular such arrangements, but not to talk about it in
general; no way to say "Oh, her posture/stance changed" or "what is
his posture in that picture?".

-Robin

[Robin Lee Powell]

On Sun, Jul 08, 2012 at 02:44:46PM +0200, selpa'i wrote:
> coi If you don't mind, I'd like to comment on each point, knowing
> well that a lot comes down to opinion:
>
> Am 08.07.2012 09:44, schrieb la .lindar.:
> >>From my notes (brief summary to be expanded perhaps never):
> >
> >{tolcliva} is crap and you pretty much should never use it.
>
> How is it crap? Is this just your (sg.) opinion or did you (pl.)
> come to an agreement about it? You gotta be more specific than
> "it's crap, you can't use it". Both tolcliva and mo'u klama /
> klamu'o have their place.

tolcliva is a poor generic word for "arrive".

> >Agree to disagree on (or attempt to deprecate, or just say 'fuck
> >it' regarding) the weird vowel letterals.
>
> Some people don't like them, but I find them prettier than .a'y
> .e'y .i'y .o'y .u'y. The obvious disadvantage is that .abu is two
> words so zo can't quote it.

Agreed on all points; lindar disagrees.

> >Agree to disagree on whether time can be {clani} or {barda}.
>
> Time can be clani. Time has a dimension and anything with a
> dimension can be long or short in that dimension.

I disagree, as a matter of philosophy, that time has a dimension;
this disagreement has nothing to do with Lojban as I've had it in
English many times; we passed on it because of that fact (that it's
not about Lojban).

> >Kill with fire all of the 'by standard' places in favour of a BAI
> >that does the same thing.
>
> I strongly disagree. There are a good number of "by standard"
> places that are used a lot, and I don't want to use BAI to get
> access to them. xamgu3 and dukse3 are two very common examples.

Quite.

> >Stuff we need to discuss tomorrow:
>
> One thing you might want to look at is how some gismu have built-in
> jai while others don't.

Some day, but probably not today. :)

-Robin

[Jorge Llambías]

On Sun, Jul 8, 2012 at 4:50 PM, Robin Lee Powell
<rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
>
> tolcliva is a poor generic word for "arrive".

It's somewhat weird like "tolcanci" for "appear", "tolcri" for "find",
"tolclaxu" for "have" because for these concepts I would expect that
the one dealing with the presence of something would be the basic one
and the one dealing with the absence would be the derived one, but I
don't see how "klamu'o" helps, at least with "mulno" as currently
defined, "has become whole" rather than "becomes whole", the final
state not the point at which that state is achieved. So if you arrived
three hours ago, you are now klamu'o, but you are not now tolcliva.
"klamulbi'o" would correspond more closely to "arrive".

>> >Kill with fire all of the 'by standard' places in favour of a BAI
>> >that does the same thing.
>>
>> I strongly disagree. There are a good number of "by standard"
>> places that are used a lot, and I don't want to use BAI to get
>> access to them. xamgu3 and dukse3 are two very common examples.
>
> Quite.

I use the x3 of "dukse",often, but I'm not sure I use it as a "by
standard" place. I use it for things like:

ti dukse lo ka tilju kei lo nu bevri
"this is too heavy to carry"

dukse lo ka manku kei lo nu ka'e viska
"too dark to be able to see"

So x3 is an event that doesn't happen because x1 has property x2 to a
degree that exceeds the point which would still alow x3 to happen. I'm
not sure that counts as a standard, at least it's not the usual
standard place.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

[vitci'i]

On 07/08/2012 02:50 PM, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> tolcliva is a poor generic word for "arrive".

Agreed; it should mean something more like english 'merge' or latin
/coagula/. IMO 'leave' is mostly just a mnemonic for {cliva}, which is
better glossed as 'separates from'.

[selpa'i]

Am 09.07.2012 00:23, schrieb Jorge Llamb�as:
>>> I strongly disagree. There are a good number of "by standard"
>>> places that are used a lot, and I don't want to use BAI to get
>>> access to them. xamgu3 and dukse3 are two very common examples.
>> Quite.
> I use the x3 of "dukse",often, but I'm not sure I use it as a "by
> standard" place. I use it for things like:
>
> ti dukse lo ka tilju kei lo nu bevri
> "this is too heavy to carry"
>
> dukse lo ka manku kei lo nu ka'e viska
> "too dark to be able to see"
>
> So x3 is an event that doesn't happen because x1 has property x2 to a
> degree that exceeds the point which would still alow x3 to happen. I'm
> not sure that counts as a standard, at least it's not the usual
> standard place.

Yes, that's what I meant. I do consider this a form of standard/frame of
reference.

ti dukse lo ka tilju kei lo nu bevri

"this is too heavy in a frame of reference of carrying it" (but it's not
too heavy to stand on a table without breaking it for example)

If this was not something a standard place could do, it would be very
useless.

[djandus]

On Sunday, July 8, 2012 2:48:05 PM UTC-5, Robin Powell wrote:

There is a property of objects that has to do with arrangement of
their parts, in general; what you gave was a way to talk about
entering particular such arrangements, but not to talk about it in
general; no way to say "Oh, her posture/stance changed" or "what is
his posture in that picture?".

[note: I moved this paragraph to the top, as I think it more accurately addresses the question of discussing the general property of arrangements of parts. I actually thought of it last.]

An opportune valsi I just thought of is stura. I can imagine {prenu stura} being the posture of a pony. It has no easy way to refer to the internal parts, however, so it must remain very general, unless somepony has a good way to descriptively fill the x1 of stura.

lo stura be ko'a binxo ("Her posture changed")

vi pixra ma poi stura ko'a ("What is her posture in that picture?")

This works by assuming that the attempt to interpret ko'a as a set/system results in treating her as a set of body parts that can be arranged in a particular posture. The responses could be less verbose:

lo stedu be ko'a sraji ("Her head is upright")

lo xance be ko'a crane ("Her hooves are in front of her")

which, provided I'm doing this right, seems a lot more straightforward. [than what I have below.]

[What follows is my thoughts of constructing a lujvo for more precise discussion of "posture" or "internal arrangement".]

Trying to create a "posture" sumti, my mind turned first to some tanru of zvati with some aspect of gunma, nenri, diklo, or ckini. That is, having a mass of positions, or specifically the state various internal/local/relative positions within one mass. The tanru sumti I thought up are:

lei nenri se zvati (the mass of internal-locations)

lei diklo se zvati (the mass of local-locations) (really weak, imo)

lei ckini se zvati (the mass of relative-locations)

This sort of really makes me want to convey that the internal locations are regarding the same larger object/set/mass. One option I like is defining the lujvo:

nerzva

n1=z1 is at internal position z2, inside n2

Then, one would hopefully be able to be either general or specific from there:

lei se nerzva pe ko'a binxo ("Her posture changed")

vi pixra ma poi ko'a te nerzva ("What is her posture in that picture?" or, more literally "What are the position(s) of something(s) inside her in that picture?")

fi ko'a lo stedu ku nerzva lo sraji ("Her head is upright")

fi ko'a lo xance ku nerzva lo crane ("Her hoof(s) are in front of her")

As you can tell, I imagine the frame-of-reference zo'e to be implied to be that of ko'a

[djandus]

I sense something nonstandard here.

On Sunday, July 8, 2012 6:21:43 PM UTC-5, selpa'i wrote:

Am 09.07.2012 00:23, schrieb Jorge Llamb�as:
> ti dukse lo ka tilju kei lo nu bevri
> "this is too heavy to carry"
>
> dukse lo ka manku kei lo nu ka'e viska
> "too dark to be able to see"

Yes, that's what I meant. I do consider this a form of standard/frame of
reference.

Compare to xamgu3:

lo nu citka cu xamgu mi lo nu sabji lo nejni

"eating is good for me because it provides energy"

lo nu citka cu xamgu mi lo nu na djacaumro

"eating is good for me because it keeps me from starving"

Most "by standards" that I would fill with a {nu}, such as banli, certu, citno, or cladu, I expect to be filled with something that supports the the mane bridi by being likely/true/accurate. dukse is being used in exactly the opposite. If usage was:

dukse lo ka tilju kei lo nu na bevri

"too heavy to carry" / "too heavy; not carried"

we could wrap it up by saying that

{broda "by standard" lo nu brode} should assert at least

{broda ki'u lo nu brode}

but dukse seems to be the only wrench. The closest I get with dukse as well is saying that

{broda "by standard" lo nu brode} merely asserts

{lo jei broda cu ckini lo jei brode}, which means

{broda "by standard" lo nu ja'a/na brode} is always the same meaning

mu'o mi'e djos

[selpa'i]

Am 13.07.2012 14:01, schrieb djandus:

Most "by standards" that I would fill with a {nu}, such as banli, certu, citno, or cladu, I expect to be filled with something that supports the the mane bridi by being likely/true/accurate. dukse is being used in exactly the opposite. If usage was:

dukse lo ka tilju kei lo nu na bevri

"too heavy to carry" / "too heavy; not carried"

Whether something is too heavy or not depends on whether you can lift it easily/at all or not. If you can't lift it, it's too heavy to lift it, not too heavy to not lift. Another way to look at it is:
lo pipno cu dukse lo ka tilju kei lo nu lo nanmu cu [ka'e] bevri lo pipno
"In a [hypothetical] frame of reference of a man carrying a piano, the piano is too heavy (for the man)". (this sounds weird in English, but feels normal in Lojban)
"By the standard of carrying the piano, it is too heavy."

.i ku'i py na dukse lo ka tilju kei lo nu catke
"But it's not too heavy to be pushed"

mu'o mi'e la selpa'i

(to ta'o sai za'a do jboni .i zo'o ma traji lo ka se nelci do kei lo cmaxi'a (to li'a na srana lo ca nuncasnu toi) toi)

[djandus]

On Friday, July 13, 2012 7:40:39 AM UTC-5, selpa'i wrote:

Whether something is too heavy or not depends on whether you can lift it easily/at all or not. If you can't lift it, it's too heavy to lift it, not too heavy to not lift.

I understand somewhat why it's supposed to make sense, but it feels to much like an English thing. At the same time, I'm trying to point out a symmetry and discuss whether it should exist. When comparing a series of negative standards, dukse stands out to me:

lo pipno cu banli lo ka melbi kei lo nu na fusra

"The piano is great in beauty by not decay." (supposing an old piano)

lo pipno cu xamgu do lo nu na danre lo do jamfu

"The piano is beneficial to you by the standard not applying pressure to your hoof." (supposing an eternal optimist)

lo pipno cu cnino fo lo mi nu na pu viska

"The piano is new by standard of me not having seen it before."

lo pipno cu dukse lo ka tilju kei lo nu lo nanmu cu [ka'e] bevri

"The piano is too heavy by the standard of carrying."

Although some of the English is a little awkward, it's for a more literal translation; the meaning is still there. The thing I find odd is that in all of the {broda "by standard" lo nu brode}, {brode .i se ki'u broda}, or at the very least {lo jai brode cu jibni lo jai broda} -- either way, the more true the abstraction bridi, the more support for the overall selbri. All except dukse. It's the only one for which a more true abstraction supports the overall bridi less.

So, my question is, is the "by standard" abstraction merely establishing a scale for which the direction is irrelevant, (for which I would be able to write all of my earlier jufra properly without {na},) or is the direction of the established scale supposed to align positively with the accuracy of the mane bridi? (for which the dukse example above would require a {na})

As a last bit as to why I think this is a coming-from-English issue, note that one of the translations was

"It is too heavy to carry."

which is supposed to help assert that the abstraction is "to carry" not, "to not carry" -- but this is a purely English argument. Once I look at Lojban translations side-by-side, it doesn't line up.

Also, I've been trying to argue that either there is a discrepancy or it shouldn't matter -- either the standard should line up in the same direction, or it can go whichever way along the same axis. Up until this bit

.i ku'i py na dukse lo ka tilju kei lo nu catke

I was totally in favor of consistently forcing the standard to be in the same direction. However, that reminded me of how terribly obnoxious it would be if any time you wanted to {na}gate the mane bridi you had to {na}gate the abstraction. (Note how suddenly being able to push the piano supports that it is not too heavy.) Plus, (not for lack of trying,) I have yet to imagine a case where the actual correlation would be unclear with context. So, that really makes me want to look at this as the abstraction bridi can go either direction, and the relationship with the mane bridi is context-sensitive. (For instance, if the speaker who presented {lo pipno cu banli lo ka melbi kei lo nu na fusra} was somepony who considered decay a beautiful thing, the piano would be decayed in such a way as to make it obvious what was intended.)

Sorry if that was way too long-winded, but I would really like to know if something in my thought process was crucially wrong.

mu'o mi'e djos.