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on 4/25/02 7:26 PM, Rob Speer at rob@hidden.email wrote: > On Thu, Apr 25, 2002 at 06:29:51PM -0600, Rex May - Baloo wrote: >>> Obvious, but it sounds idiomatic and heavily inspired by English to me. >>> "A little bit later". >> >> Just musing here, but could we not say that a pred -can- modify a non-pred, >> or at least form a compound with it? > > If a pred forms a compound with something, then by grammatical necessity that > something is a pred. > > If "pi" can modify "fu", then if you try to say "The little one will > sleep" as "to pi fu dorm", you end up with "to pifu dorm", meaning "The > one that will sleep soon". > > It seems you're still thinking of "pi" as an adjective. It's a predicate > like any other. touché! That's exactly what I was doing. How's this sound one CV turns nonpred things into preds, another vice-versa. > >>> Lojban ma -> kwa (what object?) >>> Lojban mo -> kwo (what predicate?) >>> Lojban xu -> kwe (yes/no question) >>> Lojban xo -> kwi (how many?) Loglan has ie, and it's usage described as: Ie, the only VV-word in the set, is the identity interrogative. With it one raises questions about the identity of the persons or things being designated by one's interlocutor. To use it, the speaker puts it immediately before the argument about which da wishes to raise this question. For example, suppose someone mentions la Djan Djonz and obviously assumes that you the listener know who this gentleman is. But you don't. So you say (1) Ie la Djan Djonz Which John Jones? /IEladjan.DJONZ/ or simply (2) Ie Who? So ie may be used alone with the sense of 'Who?' or 'Which?', or even as 'What?' in the sense of 'What did you say?', as well as to mark a failed identifier. And it has he for what predicate hu """ argument ho """ number ha """ connective >> >> I like this a lot. Does the yes/no thing really fit in there? I'd rather >> use the kwe for your 'ji' below. And if we need more to fit here, go with >> kway, kwey, kwaw. > > Hmm. My whole point was that Ceqli wouldn't need a word for "ji", > because it would have the modifier "kju" plus another word. Maybe that's > what you meant. Anyway, rearrange the vowels however you want. > > Incidentally, technically with "kju" most of the kw-words would be > unnecessary. For example, "kwa" = "kju da". However, I assume that > there's a Zipfean justification for having single syllables for the > common question words. Perhaps "ji" is important enough to warrant its > own word, then. -- >PLEASE NOTE MY NEW E-MAIL ADDRESS: rmay@hidden.email > Rex F. May (Baloo) > Daily cartoon at: http://www.cnsnews.com/cartoon/baloo.asp > Buy my book at: http://www.kiva.net/~jonabook/gdummy.htm > Language site at: http://www.geocities.com/ceqli/Uploadexp.htm >Discuss my auxiliary language at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/txeqli/