[YG Conlang Archives] > [ceqli group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next]

More Lojban stuff



Some other pages useful for people who want how Lojban does things are
the Reference Grammar
(http://www.lojban.org/publications/reference_grammar.html), which is
the definitive source for the language, and the Diagrammed Summary
(http://www.lojban.org/files/brochures/lojex.txt) which describes the
grammar in a particularly dense fashion.

I think that, moreso than the lessons, following the Diagrammed Summary
and coming up with Ceqli equivalents will be useful, since it really
builds the grammar up from the basics.

Looking at the first part, here's what Ceqli doesn't yet have:

* Established jargon.
  
  It seems "gro" = "predicate", so that gives us:
  bridi (predicate) -> gro
  selbri (predicate relationship) -> begro
    (This is just 'gro' modified by 'be'. A fake-predicate like 'bel',
    'bem', or 'beq' will be necessary to include this in a compound.)
  brivla (predicate word; an instance of a selbri) -> grovor
  sumti (argument) - I don't think we have a word for this yet. Running
    my Lojbanesque algorithm gives "tinje". How about it?

  Incidentally, I don't like the word "gro". It's a word that will only
  be used metalinguistically, so syllable cost doesn't really count, and
  because of the fact that it will tend to appear in English text, the
  fact that it's one syllable is a bit jarring.

* A gro terminator. This can be a terribly ugly word like "vjaj"
  because it's only necessary in theory, or perhaps in some obscure
  situations involving gro modifiers.

* A word for the unimportant version of "something". Its use is largely
  theoretical as well. Arbitrarily I suggest "zjo".

* Place structures for 'sel' (sell) and 'bel' (beautiful).
Taking the Lojban structures without the extraneous places:

sel  x1 sells x2 to x3
bel  x1 is beautiful to x2

* A word plus place structure for 'talk'. The algorithm suggests 'kal'
  coming mostly from Arabic 'kalam'.

kal  x1 talks to x2 about x3

* A word equivalent to Lojban 'cu', placed before the begro in the
  frequent event that a grovor comes before it. Loglan 'ga'. (Side note:
  the Loglan textbook is evil. They considerately introduced predicates
  after a bunch of scientific crap, and then simply avoided using 'ga'
  for several sections. I had a heck of a time finding it.)

* A paragraph separator.

* An end-of-text marker. (Again largely theoretical, but Lojban's "Alice
  in Wonderland" translation uses it for its obvious use, "The End".)

* Agreement on what punctuation will go where.

With this much, Ceqli will have equivalents for everything in Part I of
the Diagrammed Summary.

-- 
Rob Speer