baby words: position/shape, or something.

[Robin Lee Powell]

The sentiment was "Yay! You changed position from sitting to
crawling! Well done!", and I just got completely stuck; how do we
talk about the difference between a person sitting and a person
crawling? Or the difference between a convertible with the top up
or the top down? Or the options for a Transformer toy?

That is: changes in the position of the parts of an object that
change nothing intrinsic about it? I've run into this a bunch of
time when wanting to talk about them thrashing around and stuff, but
I've cheated and used sutff like "desk" and "dansu", but that's not
going to cut the mustard here.

Help?

-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.]

sezygalfi or gafygau maybe. .i do sezygalfi lo ka ce'u vreta kei lo ka zutse

[Jonathan Jones]

I'm not certain we can have a general word for that. For instance, regarding going from sitting to crawling, ignoring anything besides a change in orientation, we could use carna, but that really doesn't fit for anything else.

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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 )

[Jonathan Jones]

I'm honestly surprised that 1) we don't have a gismu for this concept, and 2) that no one's really noticed it until recently. I would think this concept would be a well-used one.

[Robin Lee Powell]

On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 10:33:20AM -0700, la .lindar. wrote:
> sezygalfi or gafygau maybe. .i do sezygalfi lo ka ce'u vreta kei
> lo ka zutse

Defers the problem; what is the ckaji that is being galfi-ed?

[MorphemeAddict]

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 1:23 PM, Robin Lee Powell <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:

The sentiment was "Yay! You changed position from sitting to
crawling!  Well done!", and I just got completely stuck; how do we
talk about the difference between a person sitting and a person
crawling?  Or the difference between a convertible with the top up
or the top down?  Or the options for a Transformer toy?

Instead of describing the change in state, just say the old state, then the new one:

"You were sitting, now you're crawling."

"Freeze!" (Oops, that's not the same thing. Just free-associating...)

stevo

That is: changes in the position of the parts of an object that
change nothing intrinsic about it?  I've run into this a bunch of
time when wanting to talk about them thrashing around and stuff, but
I've cheated and used sutff like "desk" and "dansu", but that's not
going to cut the mustard here.

Help?

-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

[selpa'i]

Am 05.07.2012 19:23, schrieb Robin Lee Powell:
> The sentiment was "Yay! You changed position from sitting to
> crawling! Well done!", and I just got completely stuck; how do we
> talk about the difference between a person sitting and a person
> crawling? Or the difference between a convertible with the top up
> or the top down? Or the options for a Transformer toy?
>
> That is: changes in the position of the parts of an object that
> change nothing intrinsic about it? I've run into this a bunch of
> time when wanting to talk about them thrashing around and stuff, but
> I've cheated and used sutff like "desk" and "dansu", but that's not
> going to cut the mustard here.
>
> Help?
>
> -Robin

All you really need is binxo:
ui sai io do binxo lo zutse

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

[Robin Lee Powell]

On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 11:39:57AM -0600, Jonathan Jones wrote:
> I'm honestly surprised that 1) we don't have a gismu for this
> concept, and 2) that no one's really noticed it until recently. I
> would think this concept would be a well-used one.

That's starting to be my feeling as well; I think it deserves a
gismu.

[Jorge Llambías]

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 2:23 PM, Robin Lee Powell
<rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
>
> The sentiment was "Yay! You changed position from sitting to
> crawling! Well done!", and I just got completely stuck; how do we
> talk about the difference between a person sitting and a person
> crawling?

ui .i'e do cenba co'a lo nu zutse kei co'u lo nu cpare

The difficult part is a word or phrase for "position" as in "stance",
but that's the same problem we have for all such names of properties
("shape", "size", "age", "height", and so on). We have words for
specific types of them, but not for the general property.

You could also say "do binxo lo cpare co'a lo nu zutse".

> That is: changes in the position of the parts of an object that
> change nothing intrinsic about it?

Something like "cenba lo ka lo pagbu be ce'u cu zvati ma kau".

mu'o mi'e xorxes

[Robert LeChevalier]

Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 11:39:57AM -0600, Jonathan Jones wrote:
>> I'm honestly surprised that 1) we don't have a gismu for this
>> concept, and 2) that no one's really noticed it until recently. I
>> would think this concept would be a well-used one.
>
> That's starting to be my feeling as well; I think it deserves a
> gismu.

The easy answer to "does it deserve a gismu" is : Does any language
(and in particular our source languages) express this concept in a
single word? If not, then it is hard to claim that it is so basic a
concept as to warrant one.

As for the concept, Nora suggests "stura"
(structure/arrangement/organization) or "morna" (another expression of
pattern/arrangement), or even ciste which talks about an arrangement of
elements, to which I will add "tcini" (which includes position) -
whichever is used, one "binxo"s that position/state.

The action taken in assuming a new form or position is probably some
form of polje or tcena.

I always thought of crawling as horizontal clambering "cpare" (and had
this in mind when defining the gismu), so assuming the crawling position
would be "pinparturbi'o (with other possibilities for the third element
per above).

lojbab

[Robin Lee Powell]

On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 06:55:20PM -0400, Robert LeChevalier wrote:
> Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> >On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 11:39:57AM -0600, Jonathan Jones wrote:
> >>I'm honestly surprised that 1) we don't have a gismu for this
> >>concept, and 2) that no one's really noticed it until recently.
> >>I would think this concept would be a well-used one.
> >
> >That's starting to be my feeling as well; I think it deserves a
> >gismu.
>
> The easy answer to "does it deserve a gismu" is : Does any
> language (and in particular our source languages) express this
> concept in a single word? If not, then it is hard to claim that
> it is so basic a concept as to warrant one.

I would be very surprised if you could find a language that *didn't*
have a word like English's "position" in "you changed position!".
Did you have some in mind?

> As for the concept, Nora suggests "stura"
> (structure/arrangement/organization) or "morna" (another
> expression of pattern/arrangement), or even ciste which talks
> about an arrangement of elements, to which I will add "tcini"
> (which includes position) - whichever is used, one "binxo"s that
> position/state.

{stura} is decent for this. I don't understand morna at all.
{ciste} is not bad. {tcini} seems far too general.

> The action taken in assuming a new form or position is probably
> some form of polje or tcena.

*nod* I use {tcena} a lot; I'd not been using {polje}, and I
probably should be.

> I always thought of crawling as horizontal clambering "cpare" (and
> had this in mind when defining the gismu), so assuming the
> crawling position would be "pinparturbi'o (with other
> possibilities for the third element per above).

I agree WRT cpare.

[Jorge Llambías]

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 9:46 PM, Robin Lee Powell
<rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
>
> {stura} is decent for this. I don't understand morna at all.
> {ciste} is not bad. {tcini} seems far too general.

I would have said "stura" referred to the intrinsic arrangement of
something's parts, not the incidental arrangement of a stance or
posture. I don't see how "ciste" has anything to do with posture. I
think the best is "tcini" although as you say it's too general, so it
should be narrowed down: for example "ko'a xadytcini ko'e ": "ko'a
tcini lo xadni be ko'e".

[Robin Lee Powell]

On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 09:59:48PM -0300, Jorge Llamb�as wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 9:46 PM, Robin Lee Powell
> <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> >
> > {stura} is decent for this. I don't understand morna at all.
> > {ciste} is not bad. {tcini} seems far too general.
>
> I would have said "stura" referred to the intrinsic arrangement of
> something's parts, not the incidental arrangement of a stance or
> posture.

Good point.

[vitci'i]

Some more English glosses: posture (for humans and other animals);
gesture (for a ko'a or change in ko'a that expresses something).

In the general case, when a device or object has movable parts, the ko'a
of the object is the current state to which those parts are moved. For
example, this could express the state of a mechanical light switch (but
not of a light bulb), or the position of the hands of an analog clock
(but not the activatedness of the display segments of a digital clock).

[Jonathan Jones]

English glosses for what?

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[vitci'i]

For the word we're trying to translate into lojban.

[Pierre Abbat]

On Thursday, July 05, 2012 06:55:20 PM Robert LeChevalier wrote:
> As for the concept, Nora suggests "stura"
> (structure/arrangement/organization) or "morna" (another expression of
> pattern/arrangement), or even ciste which talks about an arrangement
of
> elements, to which I will add "tcini" (which includes position) -
> whichever is used, one "binxo"s that position/state.
>
> The action taken in assuming a new form or position is probably some
> form of polje or tcena.

I think "morna" is the right one, and to make it more specific "plomo'a",
which could of course also be the way a sheet of paper is folded.

(I just got my computer working on my aunt's network and am quite tired
after flying across the country. Please forgive any incoherence.)

Pierre
--
When a barnacle settles down, its brain disintegrates.
Já não percebe nada, já não percebe nada.

[Robin Lee Powell]

On Fri, Jul 06, 2012 at 02:24:03AM -0400, Pierre Abbat wrote:
> On Thursday, July 05, 2012 06:55:20 PM Robert LeChevalier wrote:
> > As for the concept, Nora suggests "stura"
> > (structure/arrangement/organization) or "morna" (another
> > expression of pattern/arrangement), or even ciste which talks
> > about an arrangement
> of
> > elements, to which I will add "tcini" (which includes position)
> > - whichever is used, one "binxo"s that position/state.
> >
> > The action taken in assuming a new form or position is probably
> > some form of polje or tcena.
>
> I think "morna" is the right one, and to make it more specific
> "plomo'a", which could of course also be the way a sheet of paper
> is folded.
>
> (I just got my computer working on my aunt's network and am quite
> tired after flying across the country. Please forgive any
> incoherence.)

I seriously have *no idea* what morna means. Con you explain each
place, and/or give examples?

[Robert LeChevalier]

Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 06:55:20PM -0400, Robert LeChevalier wrote:
>> Robin Lee Powell wrote:
>>> On Thu, Jul 05, 2012 at 11:39:57AM -0600, Jonathan Jones wrote:
>>>> I'm honestly surprised that 1) we don't have a gismu for this
>>>> concept, and 2) that no one's really noticed it until recently.
>>>> I would think this concept would be a well-used one.
>>>
>>> That's starting to be my feeling as well; I think it deserves a
>>> gismu.
>>
>> The easy answer to "does it deserve a gismu" is : Does any
>> language (and in particular our source languages) express this
>> concept in a single word? If not, then it is hard to claim that
>> it is so basic a concept as to warrant one.
>
> I would be very surprised if you could find a language that *didn't*
> have a word like English's "position" in "you changed position!".
> Did you have some in mind?

I didn't consider the word "position" - it has numerous meanings
associated with location in space, not necessarily even referring to
location relative to other objects, or to other parts of the same
object. It isn't clear which of them are basic. I'm not sure whether
"position" can be used in all the applications you have in mind, but
perhaps.

The root "pose", might also be relevant, though we don't use it for the
range of purposes that you are seeking. Likewise "posture". (But is
"pose" derived from "position" or vice versa).

Similarly, we have an unrelated word, "attitude" that is used for some
of your applications, but again it has another meaning unrelated to
physical positioning, and it isn't clear which is the basic one.

I did a quick look on Google for translations from English into
non-Latinate languages, and include the back translations of the words
it gave me:

Greek:
> θέση position, place, post, status, situation, site
> τοποθεσία location, site, position, locality, situation

Russian:
> позиция position, item, stance, attitude, stand, side
> положение position, situation, provision, status, location, state
> место place, space, position, seat, site, spot
> состояние state, condition, status, situation, fortune, position
> поза pose, posture, position, attitude, stance, plant

Vietnamese:
> chổ place, position, location, space, seat, room
> vị trí position, lay, location, locus, terrain, stand
> tư thế posture, position

Finnish
> asema position, status, station, situation, place, standing
> sijainti location, position, situation, locality, site, lay
> asento position, posture, set, setting, attitude, stance
> tilanne situation, status, position, things, picture, state of affairs
> paikka place, location, position, site, seat, point

The Greek seems to have a single root, but I don't think it is the
concept you have in mind. The other languages have a variety of roots.

I'm not sure what to conclude.

Notice that looking up a word in multiple languages gives you a variety
of synonyms, several of which clearly correspond to some of the gismu.
This might be a useful trick for future problem-concepts - express it in
English and then look at the words that Google translate comes up with
and their back-translations.


lojbab