Three new proposed cmavo

[John Cowan <cbmvax!uunet!marob.masa.com!cowan>]

>From cowan Mon Jul  9 15:22:28 1990
Subject: Three new proposed cmavo
To: lojban-list@snark.uu.net
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 90 15:22:28 EDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL2]

First, thanks and *blush* to lojbab for his accolade.

1) Proposed cmavo: ju'a (UI), a general observational.  "I know by some
unspecified means", "I have reasons which I'm not mentioning".  This is like
the other observationals, and specifies the source of the speaker's knowledge
-- except that this one doesn't specify.  This is mainly useful in questions:
go'i ju'apei = "How do you know that?"

2) Proposed cmavo:  fai (GOhA), an anaphoric reference to the current bridi.
This completes the set of GOhA cmavo, which is currently:
	go'a - an earlier bridi
	go'e - the next-to-last bridi
	go'i - the last bridi
	go'o - a future (not yet uttered) bridi
	go'u - a much earlier bridi
	fi'e - the bridi in which this bridi is embedded as a relative clause
Adding fai makes it possible to remove the current vo'V set of reflexive
anaphora, which refer to the 1st-5th sumti of the current bridi.  Example:
le nanmu darxi le vo'a mapku = "the man hits x1's hat" where vo'a refers
to the referent of "le nanmu".  The alternative construction with fai would
be le nanmu darxi le mapku po le fai = "the man hits the hat of the-x1-of
this-bridi".  This is less concise but frees up five cmavo.

3) Proposed cmavo: vi'o (COI) a protocol vocative meaning "Wilco", or 
"I understand and will comply".  We already have je'e meaning "Roger"
or "I understand".  lojbab thinks that "Wilco" is correctly represented by
je'e ai = "Roger, aye aye".  My sense is that "Roger" and "Wilco" are both
acknowledgements, but ack two different things:  "Roger" acks the receipt of
the message, whereas "Wilco" acks both the message and also signals that the
next action will be taken by the receiver.  Anybody with actual experience in
military (or other protocol-bound) communications have a comment?

Another question about the protocol vocatives:  what is the proper use of
mi'enai?  Mi'e means "I am" and is the generalized self-introduction.
The attitudinal documentation in JL12 specifies mi'enai as useful 
in the situation, "You don't know me; my name is..."  It seems to me that
this is wrong.  -nai in the protocol context is a scalar negative. 
mi'e djan. = mi du la djan. = "I am John", so mi'enai djan. = "I am non-John".
or "I non-am John".  This would be useful in rejecting a label placed on you
by someone else.

For example, if I said to lojbab, "coi frank." he might reply "mi'enai frank.
mi'e lojbab." or just "mi'enai mi'e lojbab." to correct me.  If he didn't care
about correcting me, but only that I not identify him as Frank (e.g. if I
were trying to serve legal papers on Frank) a simple "mi'enai" would suffice.

-- 
cowan@marob.masa.com			(aka ...!hombre!marob!cowan)
			e'osai ko sarji la lojban


-- 
cowan@marob.masa.com			(aka ...!hombre!marob!cowan)
			e'osai ko sarji la lojban