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On Fri, Apr 26, 2002 at 01:19:58PM -0600, Rex May - Baloo wrote:
> First, again just musing, suppose we just use 'ki' in order to keep the
> sound as short as possible. Then we have
> kida What argument
> kifo What predicate (using 'fo' because it's short and contrasts in sound)
> kihan What number?
> kihe What connective? ('he' = loglan e)
> kihaj What probability (with 'haj' meaning yes, and possible answers being
> yes, no, maybe, probably)
>
> Having done all that, and maybe several more, given that Lojban does more,
> we could then, maybe, make contractions?
> kja, kjo, kjan, kje, kjaj
> and then 'ki' can remain the 'adjectival' use, as in
>
> Zi ten ki te hon? You have which book?
That doesn't work. "ki" would have to take a single word because a word
of any grammar could follow. Here, you'd be asking "You have ____ book?"
and asking the listener to fill in the article.
...which could be a useful question in some situations. (Are you saying
you have _a_ book, or the one I was talking about?) Lojban has no
equivalent.
> Go kjam ti Dxan. Ki ti Dxan? Which John?
The only valid answer to this would be "ti".
> Does this look like a good direction?
Though you'd need another pinvor for the 'adjectival' use, the first
part sounds good to me.
Well, "kihaj" worries me a bit. The Lojban equivalent is "xu", which is
an exception because it's in UI and takes any predicate as a response
(though the usual responses are "go'i" (that is true) and "nago'i" (that
is not true)). It can be placed anywhere in the sentence, and usually
goes at the beginning so that it asks about the sentence. "kihaj" would
have to go before the prevor (is "pre" a good word for "predicate"?)
because it would have a certain grammar.
It also wouldn't allow for a qualified yes. For example, in Lojban:
.i xu do ca klama Are you going (somewhere)?
.i go'i le zarci Yes, to the store.
--
Rob Speer