lo selma'o cu mo

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

Actually, I'd given that question a little thought myself.  I was a little
disappointed with the newer place-structure for {cmavo}, defining some
mystical "prototypical word".  That makes sense in Lojban, but very little
in English.  Is "in" the protitypical preposition?  Is "and" the prototype
conjunction?  Can anything be the exemplary word?  That gets iffy:  I don't
want to see "and" described as "a structure word in the class exemplified
by 'because'", "because" doesn't strike me as an exemplary conjunction.
Either make {cmavo} a uniquely Lojbanic gismu (like {lujvo}), thus striking
out the "in language" place, or else stick to the old definition,
describing "and" as a structure word in the class "conjunctions" (by
whatever selbri you want for "conjunctions") and so forth.  Ah, but what of
Colin's original question: {zo .e cmavo ma}?  Shrug.  That's why we have
inversions.

zo .e cmavo le se cmavo be zo .a

Thus using the (almost uniquely lojbanic concept of the) "exemplary word"
*by convention* (but not necessity) in the x2 place, using inversion.  This
gets circular for describing the exemplary word itself, but no more so than
".a is in selma'o A" is in English.  Moreover, I can then describe that
words share a selma'o without resorting to conjunctions like {jo'u}.  To
explain the use of the selma'o, one can always use a descriptive clause,
like Colin did.

~mark