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At 10:57 AM 5/1/03 -0700, Jorge "Llambías" wrote:
la djorden cusku di'e > It is true that they both alone can be a simple-tense-modal; that > isn't relevant though, since KI alone is also a simple-tense-modal, > and it certainly isn't analagous. Let's see. BAI, PU, ZI, ZEhA, TAhE, ZAhO, FAhA, VA, VEhA, VIhA, CAhA, CUhE and KI all share one property: their members can act as tags by themselves. No other selma'o has that property. That is a meaningful category.
If you say so.
Now, many of these selma'o are nai-able. It is not unreasonable to expect them all to be nai-able.
Why? Is being "nai-able" tied to their tag-able nature?The flaw here is that the common property that they share is due to the fact that we already have stretched and loosened the language so that the property is shared. Originally, some of the above were ONLY expected to be used in tenses, and some were ONLY used in tags. We added things to the language that I thought MIGHT be usable by extension or analogy, and a few of them have been used (others have not, like nunai). Now the fact that we allowed an extension is being used as an argument for further analogical extension, and that is not a sufficient argument at this late date. That sort of thing is an experiment, and the language is past the experimenting stage in its prescription.
If some are not, it is not unreasonable to expect there to be a reason for why they are not nai-able. "Just because" is not a satisfactory answer for everybody.
There is no answer that is satisfactory for everybody.The answer NOW is that the language is baselined and we are only fixing what is broken, not what is aesthetically unsatisfactory. That amounts to "just because" unless it causes a problem in the byfy defining it.
(As an aside, {kinai} would be much better to cancel stickiness than what CLL proposes.)
There was no intent to cancel stickiness in the design. That was a late addition by Cowan.
> A lot of things make sense that aren't worth allowing. If allowing them simplifies the grammar, it is not a cost, you'd have to eplain why they are worth complicating the grammar to disallow them.
Because the grammar is baselined.You should brought this up 5 years ago (when indeed you were the primary commentator on the pre-baselined CLL chapters, and the tense stuff was one of the first chapters available). If you did, and did not convince then, I'm not likely to be convinced now.
> Like I was saying though; I think the burden is on the positive > claim that it should be allowed. "There's not reason not to" doesn't > count as a reason for it. To me, there can't be a better reason than that.
For a baselined language, that is not a reason. lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@hidden.email Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org