Re: Some cmavo comments, if y'all please.

[cbmvax!uunet!math.ucla.edu!jimc]

jimc's snide asides on nsn's comments...
> My comments on the cmavo list, Bob's countercomments, and my snide asides,
> open for evaluation by the community:
> 
> >>>fa'e      BAI
> >la djim. kartr fa'e jimpe le lojbau platu
> >Jim Carter has the Lojban design arse-backwards.

In my opinion, this sentence is an exemplary use of fa'e specifically, and
of a miscellaneous tense in general.  Of course I agree only with the
form, not the content :-)  The English colorful metaphor I'm familiar with
is "bass-ackwards".  I assume Lojbab meant "lojban" rather than "lojbau".
I suggest interpreting X2 as a transitive diktanru, i.e. specifically as
"le platu be loi lojban", rather than as a creative metaphor: "le platu 
be zo'e -- the word "lojban" may give you a clue what it's a plan of".  

I don't think anybody actually answered <nsn> so why don't I do the honors
of pedantry.  "X1 jimpe X2" is a relation.  "X1 jimpe X2 pu P3" means that
the relation includes a time of validity (not a numbered place) which is
before P3.  "X1 pu jimpe X2" means the same except P3 is replaced by the
prevailing tense reference point (typically present time).  "X1 jimpe X2
fa'e P3" means that the relation of understanding is reverse from P3;
presumably both P3 and the main bridi can be interpreted directionally.
In a motion word "reverse" is easily interpreted but it takes some 
creative thinking when jimpe - understand is the selbri; hence the bogus
connection to tanru.  "X1 fa'e jimpe X2", finally, means the understanding
is reverse from some default reference, presumably what "everyone" knows.
This perfectly translates the English idiom "arse-backwards".  

> ... the one that doesn't do anything BAIish (music pi'o la betoven,
> pu'a la betoven, du'i la betoven, cu'u la betoven.... fa'e la betoven?! And
> this is not spurious: I defy anybody out there to use fa'e as a sumti tcita
> in a nonstupid way.

Some (not all) modern music sounds to me "fa'e la betoven", backwards from
everything Beethoven stands for.  Of course this is cheating; it's the
reverse of Beehoven's music, not of Beethoven the human.  So writing out
the sumti in full, I get:

	lo       zgike be fa'e      loi    zgike be la betoven
	(really) music    backwards (mass) music of    Beethoven

> >>>fa'u      JOI
> >>Essay please.  How does this differ from {.e} or {jo'u}?
> >Well .e is a logical connective and this isn't.

My cmavo list says fa'u means "scalar product", which I interpreted as
(a b c) fa'u (x y z) = (a*x + b*y + c*z).  Sounds like a MEX, doesn't
it?  I think some clear examples of intended use are needed for this.
My list shows pi'u as "Cartesian product", sometimes also called cross
product though to me "cross product" means the 3-D Grassman product of
a 1-form and a 2-form (as in JxB).  Certainly the Cartesian product is
a product form we use a lot, although it's hard for me to figure out
how precisely to use pi'u to represent it.

> >>>ne'a      FAhA     next to              location tense relation/direction;
 >  next to ... ; direction modal
> >>>ne'e      FAhA     edged by             location tense relation/direction;
 >  edged by ... ; direction modal
> >>>ne'i      FAhA     within               location tense relation/direction;
 >  within/inside of ... ; direction modal
> >>>ne'o      FAhA     adjacent to          location tense relation/direction;
 >  adjacent to/touching ... ; direction modal
> >>>ne'u      FAhA     away from point      location tense relation/direction;
 >  directly away from specified point ... ; direction modal
> 
> >>Again, too close. This is not a distinctive cv'x family.

Actually I don't see these as at all close.  

ne'a	Next to		Next in an ordering, or even physically touching
ne'e	Bordered by	This is one of the key relations in differential
			geometry; and the border of X is actually a different
			class of object than X (one less dimension).
ne'i	Within		Container and contents, clearly differs from all
			others.
ne'o	Adjacent to	Closest to ne'a, but means the distance to Y is
			small, not necessarily negligible.
ne'u	Away from point	It's impossible to derive towards/away from any of
			the others.  

> As Jim'll tell you, give the defining gismu explicitly, whether they match
> the form of the FAhA or not.

Right on.

		-- jimc