Re: [engelang] Xorban: Termsets

 

On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 9:32 PM, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@hidden.email> wrote: 

What if... instead of introducing foretrees and aftertrees, we were to
make he and hi full-fledged formulas (somewhat like Lojban's selma'o
GOhA)? Something like:

sentence := formula | CA # formula | WA

formula := HA | CCA | NA # formula | LA # formula # formula

# := (CA # formula | WA)*

As a side note, I admit that notation is nice and easy to read when you're used to it.  My concern is whether something so cryptic is the best way to present the grammar to the world.
 

Full-fledged he/hi would not be exactly equivalent to fore/after-tree
he/hi, but for basic cases they would work in the same way. The
formula they stand for would have to be the one from the
following/preceding sentence (not including the illocutionary
operator), so we could say things like:

cu xgja'a? ci hi!
Am I hungry? I am!

as well as things like:

je la mlta he la grka na he le fnpe nlcake
The cat does and the dog doesn't, like fish.

(?): "The cat does and the dog doesn't [like fish]; [ci] [la R?a] likes fish."  Or, does "he" consume the following sentence?  If so, is that sentence semantically a sentence?  Is the he-_expression_?  The he-_expression_ would still be grammatical if the following sentence were a WA, or absent for that matter, but what meaning would be assigned?   I don't see any way to deny here that a logically whole sentence is getting broken into more than one syntactic sentence.

And perhaps:

mlta je sa hi he na ra hi he xkra
Cats, some are but not all are, black.

That's interesting, but ideally what we'd want to do here is just coordinate the binders, not insert four placeholders for a common restriction & predication, and then front the restriction.

he'e sa na ra mlta xkra

or

je sa ha na ra ha mlta xkra

versus

mlta je sa hi he na ra hi he xkra

Thoughts?

co ma'a xrxe

Another example:

la je vrba ( je le brneka li cdri hiki ju xndake dndakike le mnseka li ckti hiki ju xndake dndakike ) li hika tcmi tvla'akaki
"The child who to his brother a radio kindly gave and to his sister a book kindly gave, about the current weather I'm talking to."