[lojban] Re: cmevla a class of brivla

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Betsemes

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Jan 12, 2006, 1:27:48 PM1/12/06
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Is there a proposal?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jorge Llamb�as" <jjlla...@gmail.com>
To: <lojba...@lojban.org>
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 4:09 PM
Subject: [lojban] Re: cmevla a class of brivla


> On 1/9/06, John E Clifford <cliff...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > Of course, the uncertainty about
> > what {me} means (there are at least three so far
> > today) doesn't help, but anything like it would
> > be subject to similar problems of excessive
> > length.
>
> According to the current baseline (CLL) {me <sumti>}
> means: x1 is/are among the referents of "<sumti>".
>
> The old (ma'oste) definition was: x1 is specific to <sumti> in aspect x2
>
> What's the third possibility?
>
> > But obviously some device is needed to
> > use sumti as predicates, else ambiguity results.
>
> In addition to {me <sumti>} there are {me <sumti> moi} and all
> the other {me <sumti> MOI}s that convert a sumti into a predicate.
>
> The place structure I use for {me <sumti> moi} is
> "x1 is/are <sumti>'s x2 by rule/relationship x3", which, while not
> exactly the same as the old {me <sumti>}, does cover a similar
> ground.
>
> I haven't found any uses for the rest of the MOIs yet.
>
> > Whether it needs to be as complex as it often now
> > is is less clear. In particular, can cmevla --
> > not whole sumti -- be used directly without problems?
>
> Can they be so used with the current gramma? No.
>
> Could the grammar be modified to allow it? Yes, trivially.
>
> Would it cause problems? It depends what you mean by
> "problems". It would require using a {cu} that is currently
> allowed but not required. You'd have to say {la djan cu klama}
> instead of just {la djan klama}.
>
> mu'o mi'e xorxes
>
>
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Betsemes

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Jan 9, 2006, 1:17:09 PM1/9/06
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> > I think cmevla should be a class of brivla.
>
> Yes, but you're a crazy person.

Do you disagree on this? Do you like how cmevla are used? Do you like {la
noi cmalu djan} for "Little John" better than just {la cmalu djan}? Do you
like {lo me lai kraislr karce} for "a Chrysler Car" better than {lo kraislr
karce}? Just a few questions for expanding my knowledge on this topic. I
have just seen xorxes side from a thread at the Beginners List, it might be
enlightening to hear about the other side of the coin.

mu'o mi'e betsemes

John E Clifford

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Jan 9, 2006, 2:29:11 PM1/9/06
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--- Robin Lee Powell
<rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Jan 09, 2006 at 02:17:09PM -0400,
> Betsemes wrote:
> > > > I think cmevla should be a class of
> brivla.
> > >
> > > Yes, but you're a crazy person.
> >
> > Do you disagree on this?
>

> Yes.


>
> > Do you like how cmevla are used?
>

> That's irrelevant; I don't like proposing
> changes to the language
> when what's there isn't broken.

But whether it is broken depends upon where you
draw the line; betsemes' examples look close to
that line on almost any definition of "broken"
(short of "Can't say it at all") and way over it
on some. Since what happens between {la} and the
next significant pause is pretty open, both in
form and interpretation, we need not to the
overly analytic version for "Little John," but
the predicate case seems to have no obvious
alternative (well, hooking {lai kraislr} on at
the end by some BAI, rather than by {me} in the
predication directly -- but that is not on the
present topic). Of course, the uncertainty about


what {me} means (there are at least three so far
today) doesn't help, but anything like it would
be subject to similar problems of excessive

length. But obviously some device is needed to


use sumti as predicates, else ambiguity results.

Whether it needs to be as complex as it often now
is is less clear. In particular, can cmevla --
not whole sumti -- be used directly without problems?

Bob LeChevalier

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Jan 5, 2006, 6:31:01 PM1/5/06
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Jorge Llamb�as wrote:
> On 1/5/06, Robin Lee Powell <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
>
>>I don't consider stage 1 and stage 2 borrowings to be fu'ivla,
>>because to me fu'ivla means "single brivla that is based on a
>>borrowing from another language".
>>
>>How do other people feel about this?
>
>
> I think cmevla should be a class of brivla. Stage 1 are quoted text,
> so they are not even borrowings.

Actually, they are the purist form of borrowing, in that they make use
of another language without consuming or modifying it in any way. They
aren't necessarily valsi, though.

lojbab

Jorge Llambías

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Jan 5, 2006, 7:31:30 AM1/5/06
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On 1/5/06, Robin Lee Powell <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> I don't consider stage 1 and stage 2 borrowings to be fu'ivla,
> because to me fu'ivla means "single brivla that is based on a
> borrowing from another language".
>
> How do other people feel about this?

I think cmevla should be a class of brivla. Stage 1 are quoted text,
so they are not even borrowings.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


Bob LeChevalier

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Jan 6, 2006, 4:31:49 PM1/6/06
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Jorge Llamb�as wrote:
> On 1/5/06, Bob LeChevalier <loj...@lojban.org> wrote:
>>An utterance that includes a zoi quote is Lojban utterance. A zoi quote
>>thus "borrows" the foreign text for use in a Lojban utterance.
>
> But a quoted word is mentioned, not used in the relevant sense.
>
> For example, if I say in English "What does "casa" mean in Spanish?"
> I'm mentioning the Spanish word "casa", but I'm not borrowing it.
> If I say "I went into the casa", then I'm using (borrowing) it.

I went into the room labeled "hjgngh".

has borrowed "hjgngh" into English temporarily surely as much as "casa"
was borrowed in your example.

*In particular*, the insight I had was that JCB's decade-long quest for
a way to borrow Linnean binomials into TLI Loglan so as to make them
"Loglan" was a waste of effort, when we had the tools for quoting
non-Loglan/Lojban text strings. In English, we can clearly borrow
Linneans without modifying them: "The human colon is infested with
Escherichia coli". Chinese apparently does the same, and so a
scientific Chinese text will have a string of Chinese characters with
embedded Roman alphabet strings. There simply is no need to Lojbanize
such text strings in order to borrow them - all we need is a way to mark
and delimit them so that they don't foul up audiovisual isomorphism, and
so that their grammatical role is unambiguously determinate. And we had
such a means with ZOI quotes. Thus I invited la'o for quoting Type I
borrowings, specifically for Linnean binomials, but recognizing that it
also solved the problem of Lojbanizing other single-use borrowings that
lose their recognizability when Lojbanized.

Since zoi quotes and la'o quotes take the same contents, if a string can
be borrowed using la'o, it can be called a "borrowing". The string's
function in a zoi quote is not as a borrowing but as a foreign string;
in a la'o quote, it is as a borrowing. But it is the same string either
way, so we can label the string as-such a "borrowing" in the potential,
time-free, sense that we can label anything in Lojban.

I agree that in the sentence 'The alien said "hhigutfuyfh;kkhjlgg"',
that the text string is not borrowed into English, but Lojban's grammar
allows more than mere quoting of alien text strings - it allows them to
be used in all the ways that a Lojban sumti or cmene can be used
(depending on whether quoted with zoi or la'o, and even a zoi quote can
be used in other roles than pure quote, using "me" or mex cmavo).

If we disagree on the terminology for this, I think we are rambling in
the semantics of English-language "borrow" in a not-especially-useful
way, but that is the sense in which >I< labeled them 'Type I
"borrowings"'. I have no problem with calling la'o quotes "borrowing"
and zoi quotes "quoting" if it eases the dispute, but that terminology
reflects the Lojban words attached to the string and are not a
categorization of the string itself, *except* in the Lojban context in
which it is being used. Thus it is at most a question whether to label
based on function or form.

Jorge Llambías

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Jan 6, 2006, 9:11:30 PM1/6/06
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On 1/6/06, Bob LeChevalier <loj...@lojban.org> wrote:
>
> I went into the room labeled "hjgngh".
>
> has borrowed "hjgngh" into English temporarily surely as much as "casa"
> was borrowed in your example.

I wouldn't say so, just like "I went into the room labeled with a star"
does not borrow the star into English, not even temporarily.
...


> If we disagree on the terminology for this, I think we are rambling in
> the semantics of English-language "borrow" in a not-especially-useful
> way,

We can definitely agree on that! :)

...


> Thus it is at most a question whether to label
> based on function or form.

The terminological issue does not bother me at all.

What does bother me a bit is not knowing whether {la'o} is only
meant to be used with proper names, as the ma'oste suggests,
or whether it is for borrowing common nouns (and perhaps even
adjectives and verbs?), as the CLL example and the fact that it
is called "stage 1 fu'ivla" suggests, or both (which is a bit incongruous).

mu'o mi'e xorxes

Robin Lee Powell

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Jan 5, 2006, 1:31:29 AM1/5/06
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I don't consider stage 1 and stage 2 borrowings to be fu'ivla,
because to me fu'ivla means "single brivla that is based on a
borrowing from another language".

How do other people feel about this?

-Robin

--
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/
Reason #237 To Learn Lojban: "Homonyms: Their Grate!"
Proud Supporter of the Singularity Institute - http://singinst.org/

Bob LeChevalier

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Jan 7, 2006, 8:46:21 PM1/7/06
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Jorge Llamb�as wrote:
> What does bother me a bit is not knowing whether {la'o} is only
> meant to be used with proper names, as the ma'oste suggests,
> or whether it is for borrowing common nouns (and perhaps even
> adjectives and verbs?), as the CLL example and the fact that it
> is called "stage 1 fu'ivla" suggests, or both (which is a bit incongruous).

la'o was created specifically to convert Linnean binomials (using la'o
or mela'o as needed) and proper names which when Lojbanized are either
unrecognizable, or lose some critical meaning or distinctness implicit
in the original spelling.

mela'o usage is strictly speaking the "stage one fu'ivla" label, given
that I think that the brivla is considered basic to Lojban. (But since
sumti are arguably also basic, and can exist in standalone utterances, a
bare sumti using la'o is arguably also a borrowing.)

Not knowing where we stand these days on name morphology, the Russian
city of Pskom would cause be to use la'o in nonce usage rather than risk
making an illegal name. I remember long debates on how to Lojbanize the
names for Albania and Hungary - and I wouldn't try to Lojbanize the name
of Klingon (from the Klingon), and expect anyone to recognize it.

In more common names, the English names "John", "Jan", "Jane", and "Jen"
are so packed that Lojbanization loses distinctness. if there were a
group of 4 people with those English names, and I wanted to refer to one
of them, with it being critical that the correct one be identified, I
would use la'o.

---------

But in the original reasoning, my design posed the stages of borrowing
as this: for a first nonce of a strange name or word that didn't
Lojbanize trivially, a fluent speaker would tend to simply quote the
non-Lojban word, using me to make it a selbri. The second stage would
be to Lojbanize it, but given the lack of place structure for a nonce
Lojbanization, might best Lojbanize it as a name, again using me to make
it a selbri. If the word was to be used multiple times, and it was
plausible that a real brivla place structure would develop, then we
would go to the trouble of making a stage 3 fu'ivla (families of similar
words having the same default place structure might skip stage 1 and/or
2). Only a word of demonstrated high frequency usage would shed the
fronted affix and have a type 4 fu'ivla made, and these would never be
made as nonce usages.

This concept was based on a certain version of "me" which may or may not
still work (since I don't clearly know where "me" stands these days in
usage).

lojbab

Mark E. Shoulson

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Jan 9, 2006, 2:36:19 PM1/9/06
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John E Clifford wrote:

>>That's irrelevant; I don't like proposing
>>changes to the language
>>when what's there isn't broken.
>>
>>
>
>But whether it is broken depends upon where you
>draw the line; betsemes' examples look close to
>that line on almost any definition of "broken"
>(short of "Can't say it at all") and way over it
>on some. Since what happens between {la} and the
>next significant pause is pretty open, both in
>form and interpretation, we need not to the
>overly analytic version for "Little John," but
>the predicate case seems to have no obvious
>alternative (well, hooking {lai kraislr} on at
>the end by some BAI, rather than by {me} in the
>predication directly -- but that is not on the
>present topic).
>

N.B., in betsemes' case (la poi cmalu djan.) there is a mandatory and
"significant" pause before {djan}, or else we're dealing with a cmene
{poicmaludjAN}. Not pausing before cmene is permitted only directly
after la/lai/doi.

~mark

Jorge Llambías

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Jan 6, 2006, 7:50:56 AM1/6/06
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On 1/5/06, Bob LeChevalier <loj...@lojban.org> wrote:
> An utterance that includes a zoi quote is Lojban utterance. A zoi quote
> thus "borrows" the foreign text for use in a Lojban utterance.

But a quoted word is mentioned, not used in the relevant sense.

For example, if I say in English "What does "casa" mean in Spanish?"
I'm mentioning the Spanish word "casa", but I'm not borrowing it.
If I say "I went into the casa", then I'm using (borrowing) it.

On 1/5/06, Mark E. Shoulson <ma...@kli.org> wrote:
> You can also do stuff with {me la'e zoi...}. {me la'e} in general has
> some nice potential.

What goes in the x1 of {me la'e zoi zoi spaghetti zoi}?
{lo spageti}, {lo ka ce'u spageti}, {lo si'o ce'u spageti ce'u},
something else?

mu'o mi'e xorxes

Jorge Llambías

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Jan 8, 2006, 10:31:01 AM1/8/06
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On 1/7/06, Bob LeChevalier <loj...@lojban.org> wrote:
> In more common names, the English names "John", "Jan", "Jane", and "Jen"
> are so packed that Lojbanization loses distinctness.

I would do them as {djon}, {djan}, {djein} and {djen}, but "John" has
been traditionally lojbanized as {djan}. (There's also {djin} and {djun}
for "Gene" and "June".)

> ---------
> But in the original reasoning, my design posed the stages of borrowing
> as this: for a first nonce of a strange name or word that didn't
> Lojbanize trivially, a fluent speaker would tend to simply quote the
> non-Lojban word, using me to make it a selbri.

...


> This concept was based on a certain version of "me" which may or may not
> still work (since I don't clearly know where "me" stands these days in
> usage).

The current baseline corresponds to the CLL definition, which makes
the {me} selbri apply to the referents of the sumti, so it would not work
with a quote directly. {me zoi zoi spaghetti zoi} is "x1 is the word
'spaghetti' " and not "x1 is a quantity of spaghetti". {me la'e zoi} might
work though.

The ma'oste definition of {me} would give "x1 is specific to the word
'spaghetti' in aspect x2", which is not all that clear what it means.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

John E Clifford

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Jan 9, 2006, 6:01:36 PM1/9/06
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--- Jorge Llamb�as <jjlla...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/9/06, John E Clifford
> <cliff...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> > Of course, the uncertainty about
> > what {me} means (there are at least three so
> far
> > today) doesn't help, but anything like it
> would
> > be subject to similar problems of excessive
> > length.
>

> According to the current baseline (CLL) {me
> <sumti>}
> means: x1 is/are among the referents of
> "<sumti>".
>
> The old (ma'oste) definition was: x1 is
> specific to <sumti> in aspect x2
>
> What's the third possibility?

The generic sumti to selbri converter, which is
very close to the oldest version. So far as I
can tell, only the "old" definition is official,
though I have seen a lot of (consequently hard to
understand) cases of your private version.



> > But obviously some device is needed to
> > use sumti as predicates, else ambiguity
> results.
>

> In addition to {me <sumti>} there are {me
> <sumti> moi} and all
> the other {me <sumti> MOI}s that convert a
> sumti into a predicate.
>
> The place structure I use for {me <sumti> moi}
> is
> "x1 is/are <sumti>'s x2 by rule/relationship
> x3", which, while not
> exactly the same as the old {me <sumti>}, does
> cover a similar
> ground.
>
> I haven't found any uses for the rest of the
> MOIs yet.

I don't get this; MOI makes various sorts of
numerical predicates (ordinal, cardinal, etc.)
from number words . I can imagine using other
things than PA for these various notions -- kinds
of mappings -- but I don't get this general
pattern (nor, probably, understand it). How is
this ordering anything , i.e., putting something
in a place in an ordering. I can get as far as a
mapping, but that does not seem to impose an
order unless the things mapped from are ordered
and (GCH not withstanding) that is not generally
the case. Nor does it help here much, since it
complicates things even further without
clarifying anything.

> > Whether it needs to be as complex as it often
> now
> > is is less clear. In particular, can cmevla
> --
> > not whole sumti -- be used directly without
> problems?
>

> Can they be so used with the current gramma?
> No.

I hardly expected that; the question was how much
would allowing it change the grammar.



> Could the grammar be modified to allow it? Yes,
> trivially.
>
> Would it cause problems? It depends what you
> mean by
> "problems". It would require using a {cu} that
> is currently
> allowed but not required. You'd have to say {la
> djan cu klama}
> instead of just {la djan klama}.
>

Probably not a bad habit anyhow. Of course this
change does not help with the general problem but
probably gets at the most commoon desired usage.

Arnt Richard Johansen

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Jan 5, 2006, 11:02:27 AM1/5/06
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On Wed, 4 Jan 2006, Robin Lee Powell wrote:

> I don't consider stage 1 and stage 2 borrowings to be fu'ivla,
> because to me fu'ivla means "single brivla that is based on a
> borrowing from another language".
>
> How do other people feel about this?

Semantic drift.

fu'ivla probably just meant "loan word", but now denotes a specific class
of brivla.

I wouldn't worry about it too much.

--
Arnt Richard Johansen http://arj.nvg.org/
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.

Robin Lee Powell

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Jan 9, 2006, 1:26:38 PM1/9/06
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On Mon, Jan 09, 2006 at 02:17:09PM -0400, Betsemes wrote:
> > > I think cmevla should be a class of brivla.
> >
> > Yes, but you're a crazy person.
>
> Do you disagree on this?

Yes.

> Do you like how cmevla are used?

That's irrelevant; I don't like proposing changes to the language


when what's there isn't broken.

-Robin

--
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/
Reason #237 To Learn Lojban: "Homonyms: Their Grate!"
Proud Supporter of the Singularity Institute - http://singinst.org/

Bob LeChevalier

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Jan 9, 2006, 7:45:44 AM1/9/06
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Pierre Abbat wrote:
>>The ma'oste definition of {me} would give "x1 is specific to the word
>>'spaghetti' in aspect x2", which is not all that clear what it means.
>
> I take {me} in type-1 and type-2 fu'ivla to be merely a syntactic word turning
> a sumti into a selbri, whose place structure can be anything.

Correct in the first part as to my intent - the ma'oste does specify the
place structure though, and loose undefined place structures are uncool
- we have BAI and fi'o constructs to solve that.

>{ti me la
> ko'oc. la xekri} "This is black cohosh" (different colors of cohosh are
> completely unrelated, so I don't think I'd use that word for a type 3 or 4).

ti xekri me la ko'hoc.

would seem better to me. If you were talking about the color, then leka
skari would go in the x2.

> {mi me la'o gy. Virginia reel .gy. lo damryjgita} "I do the Virginia reel to
> the banjo".

I understand that as saying that you ARE a "Virginia reel", banjo-ly.

mi me la'o gy. Virginia reel .gy. dansu lo damryjgita
Or
mi dansu zgike be lo damryjgita tai la'o gy. Virginia reel .gy.

{le damba cu me ky.obu le bradi} "The fighter KOed the opponent".

That one would technically work for me with a fi to push le bradi after
the aspect place, though I still would prefer a tag, especially since it
would be an equally valid "borrowing" to say

"le bradi cu me ky.obu ri'a tu'a le damba.

"knocked out" being both a transitive verb and a stative adjective
applying to the object of that verb afterwards.

lojbab

Pierre Abbat

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Jan 8, 2006, 1:11:39 PM1/8/06
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On Sunday 08 January 2006 10:31, Jorge Llamb�as wrote:
> I would do them as {djon}, {djan}, {djein} and {djen}, but "John" has
> been traditionally lojbanized as {djan}. (There's also {djin} and {djun}
> for "Gene" and "June".)

Then there are "Jeanne", "Jean", "Jean", and "Zhang", at least two of which
are {jan} in Lojban, and as we now have two names, one English, one French,
with the same spelling, one of which has the same pronunciation as "Gene", we
have to use last names or other disambiguators no matter which language we're
talking.

> The current baseline corresponds to the CLL definition, which makes
> the {me} selbri apply to the referents of the sumti, so it would not work
> with a quote directly. {me zoi zoi spaghetti zoi} is "x1 is the word
> 'spaghetti' " and not "x1 is a quantity of spaghetti". {me la'e zoi} might
> work though.
>
> The ma'oste definition of {me} would give "x1 is specific to the word
> 'spaghetti' in aspect x2", which is not all that clear what it means.

I take {me} in type-1 and type-2 fu'ivla to be merely a syntactic word turning
a sumti into a selbri, whose place structure can be anything. {ti me la

ko'oc. la xekri} "This is black cohosh" (different colors of cohosh are
completely unrelated, so I don't think I'd use that word for a type 3 or 4).

{mi me la'o gy. Virginia reel .gy. lo damryjgita} "I do the Virginia reel to

the banjo". {le damba cu me ky.obu le bradi} "The fighter KOed the opponent".

phma

Robin Lee Powell

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Jan 5, 2006, 1:06:24 PM1/5/06
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On Thu, Jan 05, 2006 at 09:31:30AM -0300, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> On 1/5/06, Robin Lee Powell <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> > I don't consider stage 1 and stage 2 borrowings to be fu'ivla,
> > because to me fu'ivla means "single brivla that is based on a
> > borrowing from another language".
> >
> > How do other people feel about this?
>
> I think cmevla should be a class of brivla.

Yes, but you're a crazy person.

> Stage 1 are quoted text, so they are not even borrowings.

*nod*

-Robin

--
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/
Reason #237 To Learn Lojban: "Homonyms: Their Grate!"
Proud Supporter of the Singularity Institute - http://singinst.org/

Jorge Llambías

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Jan 9, 2006, 3:09:52 PM1/9/06
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On 1/9/06, John E Clifford <cliff...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Of course, the uncertainty about
> what {me} means (there are at least three so far
> today) doesn't help, but anything like it would
> be subject to similar problems of excessive
> length.

According to the current baseline (CLL) {me <sumti>}


means: x1 is/are among the referents of "<sumti>".

The old (ma'oste) definition was: x1 is specific to <sumti> in aspect x2

What's the third possibility?

> But obviously some device is needed to


> use sumti as predicates, else ambiguity results.

In addition to {me <sumti>} there are {me <sumti> moi} and all


the other {me <sumti> MOI}s that convert a sumti into a predicate.

The place structure I use for {me <sumti> moi} is
"x1 is/are <sumti>'s x2 by rule/relationship x3", which, while not
exactly the same as the old {me <sumti>}, does cover a similar
ground.

I haven't found any uses for the rest of the MOIs yet.

> Whether it needs to be as complex as it often now


> is is less clear. In particular, can cmevla --
> not whole sumti -- be used directly without problems?

Can they be so used with the current gramma? No.

Could the grammar be modified to allow it? Yes, trivially.

Would it cause problems? It depends what you mean by
"problems". It would require using a {cu} that is currently
allowed but not required. You'd have to say {la djan cu klama}
instead of just {la djan klama}.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


Mark E. Shoulson

unread,
Jan 5, 2006, 9:12:55 PM1/5/06
to lojba...@lojban.org
Jorge Llamb�as wrote:

>On 1/5/06, Bob LeChevalier <loj...@lojban.org> wrote:


>
>
>>Jorge Llamb�as wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Stage 1 are quoted text,
>>>so they are not even borrowings.
>>>
>>>
>>Actually, they are the purist form of borrowing, in that they make use
>>of another language without consuming or modifying it in any way.
>>
>>
>

>Yes, I have to admit I was thinking of {zoi}, which is to quote foreign
>text, not to borrow it, and not of {la'o} which is indeed to borrow,
>at least if we accept the CLL example {me la'o ly spaghetti ly} for
>"x1 is a quantity of spaghetti", and forget about the ma'oste definition
>which says it's for foreign _names_.


>
You can also do stuff with {me la'e zoi...}. {me la'e} in general has
some nice potential.

~mark

Bob LeChevalier

unread,
Jan 5, 2006, 9:40:22 PM1/5/06
to loj...@yahoogroups.com
Jorge Llamb�as wrote:
> On 1/5/06, Bob LeChevalier <loj...@lojban.org> wrote:
>>Jorge Llamb�as wrote:
>>
>>> Stage 1 are quoted text,
>>>so they are not even borrowings.
>>
>>Actually, they are the purist form of borrowing, in that they make use
>>of another language without consuming or modifying it in any way.
>
> Yes, I have to admit I was thinking of {zoi}, which is to quote foreign
> text, not to borrow it,

An utterance that includes a zoi quote is Lojban utterance. A zoi quote

thus "borrows" the foreign text for use in a Lojban utterance.

lojbab

Jorge Llambías

unread,
Jan 5, 2006, 1:42:23 PM1/5/06
to lojba...@lojban.org
On 1/5/06, Robin Lee Powell <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 05, 2006 at 09:31:30AM -0300, Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> >
> > I think cmevla should be a class of brivla.
>
> Yes, but you're a crazy person.

That may or may not be the case, but it doesn't really address
the issue.

Lojban already treats common nouns as predicates, so extending
this to proper nouns is only natural. It could be argued that grouping
common nouns with verbs and adjectives rather than with proper
nouns is crazier than what I propose.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

Jorge Llambías

unread,
Jan 5, 2006, 8:50:30 PM1/5/06
to lojba...@lojban.org
On 1/5/06, Bob LeChevalier <loj...@lojban.org> wrote:
> Jorge Llamb�as wrote:
> > Stage 1 are quoted text,
> > so they are not even borrowings.
>
> Actually, they are the purist form of borrowing, in that they make use
> of another language without consuming or modifying it in any way.

Yes, I have to admit I was thinking of {zoi}, which is to quote foreign


text, not to borrow it, and not of {la'o} which is indeed to borrow,
at least if we accept the CLL example {me la'o ly spaghetti ly} for
"x1 is a quantity of spaghetti", and forget about the ma'oste definition
which says it's for foreign _names_.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


Jorge Llambías

unread,
Jan 9, 2006, 10:26:46 AM1/9/06
to lojba...@lojban.org
On 1/9/06, Bob LeChevalier <loj...@lojban.org> wrote:

> Pierre Abbat wrote:
> > {le damba cu me ky.obu le bradi} "The fighter KOed the opponent".
>
> That one would technically work for me with a fi to push le bradi after
> the aspect place, though I still would prefer a tag, especially since it
> would be an equally valid "borrowing" to say
>
> "le bradi cu me ky.obu ri'a tu'a le damba.
>
> "knocked out" being both a transitive verb and a stative adjective
> applying to the object of that verb afterwards.

Ugh! What fu'ivla stage uses pronouns as borrowings?
The canonical stages would give something like:

Stage-1: me la'o gy K.O. gy
Stage-2: me la keioz
Stage-3: darxrkeio
Stage-4: ???

That is, assuming Stage-1 and Stage-2 are at all usable for borrowing
verbs (which is very iffy) and that the verb KO would make a good
candidate for borrowing at all (very iffy as well).

{me ky obu} to me would have a very different meaning. For example:

la katis ogorman cu melbi ninmu i ju'i do tu me ky obu
"Katty O'Gorman is a beautiful woman. Look, that's her!"

mu'o mi'e xorxes

John E Clifford

unread,
Jan 5, 2006, 2:38:49 PM1/5/06
to lojba...@lojban.org
--- Jorge Llamb�as <jjlla...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/5/06, Robin Lee Powell
> <rlpo...@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 05, 2006 at 09:31:30AM -0300,
> Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> > >
> > > I think cmevla should be a class of brivla.
> >
> > Yes, but you're a crazy person.
>
> That may or may not be the case, but it doesn't
> really address
> the issue.
>
> Lojban already treats common nouns as
> predicates, so extending
> this to proper nouns is only natural. It could
> be argued that grouping
> common nouns with verbs and adjectives rather
> than with proper
> nouns is crazier than what I propose.
>

That "cow", say, is a noun in English (and
similar words in spanish, etc.), rather than a
verb or adjective or some other grammatically
defined category ("full" rather than "empty",
"living" rather than "dead" -- although these are
arguably less purely grammatical) is an accident
of the history of the langauge. Other languages
-- and not just Lojban and kin -- do it
differently. The same is true (to a somewhat
lesser extent) of the forms used to identify
individuals, which may turn up in almost any
class in some language (insofar as classes can be
correlated across languages). Lojban tries to
have the form classes match the logical
categories (of a particular logic, but one
developed in common-noun languages)and in that
system common nouns are more like adjectival
predicates and verbs (indicate membership in
extensible classes) than like proper nouns
(identify individuals). Of course, Lojban cmevla
can indicate several individuals and thus
possibly an extensible class, but it seems always
to be a class defined (somewhat ciruclarly) by
reference to the cmevla, "those called c."
All of which is an objection to xorxes' way of
putting the case. The case, however, is not
without merit. Brivla can already occur wherever
a cmevla can (well, I think vocative uses always
require {doi} or the like, so a bare brivla will
be taken usually in a non-vocative way). On the
other hand, there are cases where it would be
handy to use cmevla in brivla places. We can say
"a Ford car" or "a Nixon trick" or the like by a
variety of periphrases, but ({me} having been
highjacked for other -- already covered --
purposes -- and even it was a less than direct
approach) Lojban lacks the economy of English
(etc.). And at least some of the often useful
vagueness: most Lojban expression to cover this
sort of thing have to be relatively precise about
how the name (that is, things so named) fit into
description (or the situation being described)and
that is not always (indeed, often not) easy to
specify on the fly (or after some thought, even).
Someplace around there was a suggestion to use
{iy} and {uy} to bracket cmevla -- or indeed any
bit of language (any language) -- to function as
a predicate (and so as a cmene -- this started, I
think, in trying to deal with Indian (feather not
dot) names like "Afraid of horses" and then
extended to dealing with the first few stages of
absorbing "foreign" words into Lojban as a quick
way of dealing with temporary adoptions on the
fly).
In short, while combining "common nouns" with
verbs and adjectives rather than proper nouns is
not crazy, neither is combining proper nouns with
those same verbs and adjectives.

John E Clifford

unread,
Jan 8, 2006, 2:57:13 PM1/8/06
to lojba...@lojban.org
--- Pierre Abbat <ph...@phma.hn.org> wrote:

> On Sunday 08 January 2006 10:31, Jorge
Llamb�as
> wrote:
> > I would do them as {djon}, {djan}, {djein}
> and {djen}, but "John" has
> > been traditionally lojbanized as {djan}.
> (There's also {djin} and {djun}
> > for "Gene" and "June".)
>
> Then there are "Jeanne", "Jean", "Jean", and
> "Zhang", at least two of which
> are {jan} in Lojban, and as we now have two
> names, one English, one French,
> with the same spelling, one of which has the
> same pronunciation as "Gene", we
> have to use last names or other disambiguators
> no matter which language we're
> talking.

And "Joan." We can't avoid homonyms in Lojban for
English (and French and Chinese and ...) names,
though the ancient phonology ( with /o/ as "aw"
and /ou/ as "oh" loosens things up a bit, as do
dialectic variations ({djon} in that older form
for "John" as in New England and Eastern Canada
and so contrasting with {djoun} "Joan"). Of
course, in almost every dialect, some of these
just are pronounced the same and so get carried
over the same. We might want to conventionalize
some of the more common, however. (and for
"Zhang" there is always the suggestion to do
Chinese /ng/ as /m/ as functioning roughly the
same functionally).

John E Clifford

unread,
Jan 12, 2006, 2:27:16 PM1/12/06
to lojba...@lojban.org
--- Betsemes <bets...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Is there a proposal?

For making cmevla be a type of brivla? I don't
think so; this was at best exploratory: what
would happen if... . It does seem that nothing
very drastic would happen (but there may be
deeper problems yet to come to light), but that
still does not make it to the level of saying it
would be a good idea to do it (though there are
some points on that side) and certainly not of
actually proposing the change. I would tend to
favor the change, were it proposed, at least
partly because I don't like any of the historic
Lojban uses of {me} (I think they are already
covered or could be with less dramatic moves) and
the cmevla as brivla would do away with the
Loglan original as well.
The bit about _{me ... moi} IS a proposal, which
suffers (in my view) from using {me} in yet
another sense and {moi} in an unrelated (OK, you
can make up a kind of story which makes this use
look a little like what happens with orderings)
sense (and is a discontinous component that
cannot be analyzed into its parts).

> > mu'o mi'e xorxes
> >
> >

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