The dreaded word "only"

["Mark E. Shoulson" <cbmvax!uunet!CTR.COLUMBIA.EDU!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!shoulson>]

John talks about "only", using the "roda poi... du..." construction.

That works, as in the example he gives,

  roda poi cevni du la alex.
  all that is-a-god is-identical-with Allah.

Which is fine.  I recall, though, Guy Steele's discussion of this earlier
and the sentences which came out of that, which were of the form:

la alex. .enai lo drata cu cevni
Allah and-not something-other is-a-god
(I'm not positive about this; does it really imply that Allah and not *any*
other thing is a god, or just that Allah is and there's something else
which isn't?)

A slightly different and maybe clearer one:
la .alex. .e no drata [ri] cu cevni
Allah and no thing-other [than he] is-a-god
(the "ri" is for the picky)

OBTW, yes, you *can* in Lojban be more specific about whose hands go in
whose pockets at whose instigation, of course, just as you can in English
or in French.  Whether or not you choose to is of course up to you given
your situation.  English prefers more specification (I put my hands in my
pockets), but there is nothing ungrammatical about "I put the hands in the
pockets", it's just not common parlance (Though "I put hands in pockets"
somehow sounds much better to me).  We can always specify.  Similarly, in
French you usually don't specify but you always could, especially if the
default is broken (putting someone else's hands in someone else's
pockets...)

~mark