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on 6/1/02 9:16 PM, Rob Speer at rob@hidden.email wrote: > On Thu, May 30, 2002 at 01:05:59PM -0600, Rex May - Baloo wrote: >> Okay, we have three methods for dealing with place structure. >> 1. Move the places around with be, ce, de. >> 2. Designate a given place with fa, fe, fo, fi >> 3. Use 'something' place fillers. >> Now, do we also want a set of case tags? > > What are case tags? In Lojban jargon, this term is equivalent to > "modals", but I won't assume anything based on that. Modals are done by > borrowing a place of a different predicate, where many > arbitrarily-selected predicates have cmavo equivalents for modals. > > And I think that system is ugly, which is why I suggested "ho" + > possible be/ce/de + predicate. Loglan case tags explained at http://www.loglan.org/Loglan1/chap4.html#sec4.31 Though some of the eleven aren't explained well enough for me. I'm all for the 'ho' system, but I can see the advantage of having pinvor case tags (I guess we're calling them case tags because they're not suffixes, hence not case endings, but they behave the same way) as an additional option, no matter how they're derived. This all seemed sort of trivial to me until I realized that we quite often need an instrumental case in a sentence, but certainly don't want that instrumental case to be obligatory. For example, 'I see the tree' doesn't seem incomplete as it is, but 'with a telescope' can certainly be added. There are probably cases other than the instrumental for which this is equally true, but which haven't occurred to me. Let me see if I understand the ho system. Go ploj to spajla. I use the telescope. Go ver to bawm. I see the tree. Go ver to bawn ho be ploj to spajla. right? And if we can do that, can we not use a word like 'to tul', (the tool) and say Go ver to bawm ho tul to spajla On the other hand, why can't this construction be as logical: Go ploj to spajla. I use the telescope. Go ver to bawm. I see the tree. Go ver to bawm dy ploj to spajla. I see the tree with (using) a telescope. This would be parallel with other verb forms: Go soma to hon dy stu to tcer. I read the book sitting on the chair. (this isn't ambiguous in Ceqli. It means that I was sitting on the chair. To say I read the bood which is sitting on the chair we'd use either se or hu: Go soma to stu to tcer sa hon. Go sama to hon hu stu to tcer.) To kiqi pa ver ta teli, dy kom ta pan. The king watched television, eating bread. Any logical or grammatical problems with any of that? Advantage over the 'ho be' system is that it loses at least one syllable, and, to me at least, makes for a more 'natural' feeling, paralleling, as it does, the English -ing construction. -- >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/