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on 4/30/02 12:05 AM, Rob Speer at rob@hidden.email wrote: >> What does a terminator do here? > > Well, it ostensibly goes at the end of the preja. "mi klama le zarci" > with all its terminators is "mi cu klama le zarci ku vau". But since the > end of the preja is nearly always (I can't think of a counterexample) > going to be the end of a clause, the sentence, or the whole text, which > have their own terminators/separators, "vau" is only a theoretical step, > redundant in actual use. > Gotcha. It's a necessity that is almost never used. Good. >>> * A word plus place structure for 'talk'. The algorithm suggests 'kal' >>> coming mostly from Arabic 'kalam'. >>> >>> kal x1 talks to x2 about x3 >> >> How about 'bol'? Are different words for talk, say, speak, necessary? > > Lojban has words for "talk" (tavla, which focuses on the topic), > "express/say" (cusku, which focuses on what idea is expressed - the idea > can be implied with an actual quote), and "utter" (bacru, which focuses > on the actual sounds that are made). > > The three have different place structures, and are all in use. > > The distinction between "say" and "utter" is this: > > .i le ctuca cu cusku zo mu The teacher says "five". > .i le bakni cu bacru zo mu The cow says "moo". Hm. Is everybody happy with this setup? My knee-jerk reaction is that I'd rather just learn one word and maybe mess around with prefixes or some other way to vary the place structure. Maybe Go bol baj bej. I say x to y. Go tembol ta kan zi I about-speak dogs to you. I talk to you about dogs. Go cumbol baj bej I sound-say x to y. I make the sound x to y. Go plojbol ta ceqli. I use-say Ceqli. I speak Ceqli. this would be a rather Esperantoish approach. > > (zo is a single-word quote.) > >>> * 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.) >> >> I see various possibilities. Take the sentence >> To kan kom. >> We can have a ga/cu word. >> To kan ga kom. >> We can close the 'to' >> To kan beto kom. >> If we decide on that, we need a better closer, one syllable, that can, say, >> close any t-word. > > A single-syllable word for that would be nice. But anyway, 'ga'/'cu' is > still important, because it answers an objection that And raises about > having to count levels of grammar; if you're deep in descriptions and > sub-clauses, 'cu' jumps out - no matter how many levels - to the next > preja that needs a bepreja. Usually it gets you out to the main level of > the sentence. (The bepreja is the word or group of words (prejavor) that > is the actual 'verb' of the predicate.) > >> We can have a pinvor that means 'The preceding argument', which would behave >> as the repeated 'da' I originally used, but without the ambiguity. >> To kan (TPA) kom > > This would fill an extra place. > > But then, a "the previous argument" word (Lojban "ri") will be necessary > too. I'm inclined to go with 'daj', as it suggests argument. Then 'daw' could be the up-coming argument. We can always keep the beto, beta, etc. for emergencies, but I think they're kind of inelegant. I think of them as grammatical enunciation, for the benefit of foreigners, computers, or lawyers. > >>> >>> * A paragraph separator. >> >> Like Loglan 'nao'? Sure thing. > > Though hopefully not a false cognate like that. (They even glossed it as > "Now"!) How about 'cin' meaning 'new' from Mandarin. "Ho cin" begins a paragraph. > >>> * An end-of-text marker. (Again largely theoretical, but Lojban's "Alice >>> in Wonderland" translation uses it for its obvious use, "The End".) >> >> How about 'pio,' from english PerIOd. > > Okay. But I suppose that at this point we should start coming up with > the predicate words, as many of Lojban's cmavo were inspired by those > instead of by other languages. "fa'o", its end of text word, came from > "fanmo" for "final". > > (My word-making algorithm seems to rather like 'nj'. It makes 'fanje' as a > suggestion for 'final'.) Sure. Now, shouldn't the actual expression be a pinvor+fanje? Can 'ho' do it? ho fanje > >>> * Agreement on what punctuation will go where. >> >> I'm sure we can agree to no caps. How about . for a glottal stop and , for >> a pause? > > Are they going to be distinguished? In Lojban, glottal stops are used as > a substitute for a full pause when speaking quickly. I seem to recall > someone objected to this, though. I'm very vague about this. To me they're pretty much the same thing in most instances. But before an initial vowel, I seem to want to make the glottal stop pretty clearly. I'm reconciled with the need for a pause after a name, to be shown with a comma-pause. -- >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/