[YG Conlang Archives] > [ceqli group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
Rob:
> On Thu, Apr 25, 2002 at 09:24:32AM -0600, Rex May - Baloo wrote:
> > What do you think of And's comments?
>
> I suppose I could deal with it if the language didn't have a clear
> distinction between predicates and pinvor, but And's reason for it makes
> no sense. He says that it is unclear what is a predicate and what is
> not.
I don't remember having said that.
> But there's nothing unclear about it. In the Lojban grammar, which I get
> the impression it's Ceqli's goal to match, predicates are a very
> specific grammatical class. You can't include a word in the language
> until you know what its grammatical function is.
But there are various points of confusion here. First of all, we
had been discussing the cmavo/gismu (little word/prim) word-class distinction,
not the distinction between brivla ('predicate
word') and the various other grammatical categories (selmaho).
One point I had been trying to make is that the cmavo/gismu
distinction is not a natural one. Certainly we cannot have
a grammar without word-classes, but 'predicates' would not
constitute a single unitary class, and cmavo would not
constitute a class.
Further points:
* 'predicate' is a very ambiguous term, and there is potential
confusion in using it, since we may mean different things by
it
* The Lojban selmaho do not form natural logical classes in
any way; their function is just to enable the grammar to
define the set of licit sentences, where sentences themselves
are defined in solely phonological terms.
This said, I do think that Lojban grammar is a good starting
point for Ceqli, just because it is somewhat better defined
and understood than natlang grammars. Just don't think of it
as the embodiment of rational perfection. And remember that
it is there to be radically altered, so that Ceqli can
better approximate its anglochinese ideal.
--And.