Re: Hans Christian Andersen: countercomments

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>> nsn
> iad
>>  My experimental cmavo, given
>>  lenu xy. cu broda cu galfi y'y. zy.
>>  produces
>>  xy. xe'e galfi y'y zy lenu xy. broda
>>  which once more matches the 1990 structure.

>Can you use {xe'e} with na'e {galfi}, though?  How did you decide that
>{lenu xy. broda} has to become the fourth argument of {xe'e galfi}?

Sorry, I meant {xy. xe'e galfu y'y zy fai lenu xy. broda} (how did I omit
that {fai}?)

>I think having {tu'a} is a good idea, but being forced to use it all
>the time is not.  In particular, I believe that, if one of the places
>of a certain predicate is defined so that whatever argument is there
>must be prefixed by {tu'a} unless it is an abstraction (NU something),
>then {tu'a} should be allowed to be elided as redundant.

This is already close to true with {rinka}, I think.

>But this is not the case in {ri selkecmlu ri'a tu'a lo carvi}.  The
>rain is as much of an event as {NU ...}, and you can be wet {ri'a lo
>carvi} (no {tu'a} there), but in the case of {selkecmlu} we have an
>indirect causal link.

Hm. The way I interpret the gi'uste, {lo carvi} is raindrops, not the event
of rain. Still, I won't insist on a {tu'a} in the specific example. Whether
Lojbab would is up to him (and, OK, up to LLG policy, but this {tu'a} is
still quite young). The indirectness of the causality is a very apposite
thing to point out, and I'm wondering whether we'll be tempted, as speakers
of an analytically minded language, to distinguished between "direct" and
"indirect" causality. The mechanisms for doing so are being built into the
langauge. But that way madness lies...

>In all
>natural languages that I can think of, "want sthg" means `want to have
>sthg' (whatever "have" may mean).  In Lojban {djica tu'a lo nolraixli}
>may mean `want to strangle a m.n.m.', `want to see off a m.n.m.'...

Oh, surely. Blind {tu'a} is no solution, the more so since it is so often
redundant. With djica, the solution may be: 1) the 1990 status quo ({djica
lo broda}=={djica lenu posne lo broda}); or 2) using {posydji} rather than
{djica lo broda}. Both of which can be faulted.

>>  >             > {ni'a} is "below"; {mo'ini'a} is "downwards".
>Why's that, by the way?  The FAhA cmavo are described as "direction
>modals", not "location modals".  And some of them are clearly dynamic
>in meaning.

I can't quite explain it other than on the base of current usage and the
{fa'a - mo'ifa'a} paradigm. I await the JL16 tense paper as eagerly as any.

>>  I remember your phrase "UI depend on the deontology of the speaker". Well,
>>  I went for "kau refers to the knower of the sentence it is in". Thus
>>  la djan. djuno ledu'u ri klama zo'ekau
>>  means John knows where he's going, not that John's going somewhere, and I
>>  know where. Right?
>You mean to say that {kau} can only be used in a "knowing" sentence?
>One with {djuno} as a predicate?

Certainly not. But the use of {kau} does suggest to me a {du'o} place.
{mi klama zo'ekau} - I'm going somewhere in particular: the knower is the
speaker. All I am saying is that, in some cases, the pattern

{mi djuno ledu'u do klama zo'ekau}
{do djuno ledu'u do klama zo'ekau}
{du'u do klama zo'ekau}

is more constructively interpreted as

"I know where you're going"
"You know where you're going"
"The sentence that you're going somewhere known (to you)"

than as

"I know where you're going"
"You're going somewhere, and I know where"
"The sentence that you're going somewhere known (to me)"

I don't think I've made the case as well as I might have; but I do think
it'd be a pity to tie the... um... referent of {kau} to the speaker in
all cases. {kause'i}/{kause'inai} is a sort of solution, but we should do
better, without having to resort to extralinguistic explication.

(But then, how to interpret {do klama zo'ekau}? Yes, it's not cut'n'dry.)

Nick