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


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

Re: [jboske] The place structure of {speni} in regards to cultural neutrality



--- Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@hidden.email> wrote:
>         Word: speni
>         Type: gismu
>   Gloss Word: {married}
>        rafsi: spe
>   Definition: x1 is married to x2; x1 is a spouse of x2 under
>             law/custom/tradition/system/convention x3
>        Notes: See also {prami}, {gletu}.
> 
> Doesn't this entail monogamy, or at least a dyadic relation?

It doesn't entail monogamy, just like zunle does not entail that
x1 is the only thing to the left of x2 or that it is not to the left
of anything else. It would only entail monogamy if the x3 is a 
law/custom/tradition/system/convention that only allows monogamous
marriages.

It is a dyadic relation, but this is not so much a matter of
lack of neutrality as the fact that Lojban does not deal well
with an open ended number of argumants. For example, {sumji} 
could be "x1 is the sum of x2, x3, x4, ..." but it is defined
with three places only. 

To say that a group of people are mutually married, we can
use {spesi'u}, but I'm not sure how we can get a place structure
like "x1, x2, x3, x4 ... are in a marriage together".

mu'o mi'e xorxes



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
http://shopping.yahoo.com