le la vei,on ckafyzda srinuntroci xipa

["Mark E. Shoulson" <cbmvax!uunet!ctr.columbia.edu!shoulson>]

>Date:         Sat, 29 Aug 1992 04:34:44 -0500
>From: VILVA%VIIKKI21.HELSINKI.FI@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU
>X-To:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu

>>Date: Fri, 28 Aug 1992 10:27:39 -0400
>>From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <shoulson@CTR.COLUMBIA.EDU>
>>>ni'o zdani

>>I might have thought {dinju} would be a better choice.  {zdani}
>> [ ....... ]
>>two old, and it's broken.  Please let us switch to {ckafybarja}.

>  In this case I definitely wanted the connotation of dwelling or
>  even home-coming. I was thinking along the lines of a cafe where
>  people are not perhaps quite dwelling but spending a lot of time
>  telling stories and having conversations. At least in some parts
>  of Europe cafes (especially student cafes) and like are almost
>  a second home to some people.

>  Also implied was a cultural dwelling place.

Sorry, I'm unconvinced.  You say you're trying to get warm fuzzy feelings
of homecoming by using {zdani}, but {zdani} doesn't have that meaning
either.  The lair of a dragon is a {zdani}.  A beehive is a {zdani}.
{zdani} means "place of residence/habitation of....", not implying any
hominess nor lack thereof.  Even if the manager chances to live in the
place, (and thus it may be proper to describe it as a {zdani}
>incidentally<), what we are describing the place as is a tavern or bar or
other sort of informal restaurant wherein coffee is served.  That is, {le
barja zo'e loi ckafi} --> {le ckafi barja} --> {le ckafybarji}.  Now, the
proprietor(s) of the place, perhaps, might try naming it {la ckafyzda}
(note the article), as that would be a tolerable name for such a place, but
as a description, it doesn't wash.  I don't care how much time people spend
there:  call it what it is---{lo barja}.

>  {ckafybarja} is better as a general lujvo (and corresponds to
>  usage in some languages, e.g. Finnish before AmerEng domination)
>  but...

>  There is nothing sacred about {ckafyzda} but it may match the
>  underlying ideas much better. If we are stacking the place
>  with connotative paraphernalia we may as well tack on a few
>  more connotations.

Connotations are fine in describing the place, in the objects you put in
there, etc., but if you call something by what it isn't, people won't know
what you're talking about.  {ckafyzda} would imply maybe the home of a
coffee grower (rotten lujvo for it, though), or a coffee-colored house
(also not so great), or a place where coffee lives (decent lujvo)---yes,
that's probably the most likely interpretation.  Just as {remzda} is used
to mean "house" (i.e. typical habitation of human beings---some cultural
bias there, no?), {ckafyzda} seems to conjure up some kind of habitation
for coffee (as if it were a living being).  Maybe those big burlap sacks
that coffee beans are kept in, or a cannister on your shelf.  In either
case, the word would be very poetic, but more for its implication that
coffee "lives" anywhere than for connotations of hominess on {zdani}.

>>>.i ckafyzda
>>>.i mi zvati le vorstu gi'e terpanci loi ckafi da.uicai

>>"I am-at the door-place [doorway] and am-a-smell-receptor-of
>>[smell-emitted-by] mass-of coffee [smell being] x1"

> + just the desired sumti to hang the attitudinal on

>  I really wanted to have both the emitter and the odor.

Yeah, it seems to be a very good usage of the existential {da}.


>>.i mi ca ze'upu.oi na'e sumne da

>>I'm always a little fuzzy with tenses... "I now (a-long-time-interval
>>past)"..?  Oh, "it's now a long time that..."  Hrrrm.  I let John
>>Cowan be the judge of that, if he gets a free moment.

>  Was built along the lines indicated in 'Imaginary journeys'

Yes, tense probably works.  Though I've been thinking that {na'e} might not
be the right negator.  "I was other-than-a-smeller-of it1 (the smell of
coffee)" --- well what were you of it, then?  Maybe an emitter?  {na'e}
usually implies negation to somewhere else on the scale, but there's not
much of a scale in {sumne}.  Really what you're saying is that the
relationship of {sumne} didn't hold for you and {da} (in whatever tense).
You smelled other things, and {da} was smelled by others, and you had other
relations with {da} (you thought about {da} perhaps), but that particular
relationship didn't hold.  That's precisely the sort of negation provided
by {na}, if I remember the negation paper properly.  I think {na} might be
a better negator here.  Any other notions?  Is {na'e} really better?

>>>.i vrici slada'i noi mi na djuno zo'e ke'a

>>*sigh*.  This is such a common mistake something should be done.  A
>>selbri can't take {noi}.  You can't use it this way in an
>>observative.  Use {gi'e} or something.

>  Yeah. Have to think about that. I did remember this grammatical
>  point when I started but got carried away. I definitely remember
>  thinking that that's the error I'm NOT going to make.

>  How about {.i seldandu lo vrici ...} to retain the structure
>  and include a little bit more of the spec at the same time?
>  Have to think about le vs lo.

I've never heard anyone, myself included, do satisfactory things with
le/lo, or maybe I have no clue of what satisfactory is for that.  Likely
both.

>>>.i ji'ipano zutse remna

>>This is fine, but you should realize that it's not quite the same as
>>the previous observatives.  Observatives are sentences with selbri
>>but no sumti (or at least no x1 sumti).  The x1 is considered to be
>>ellipsized, so "jubme" is "(something unspecified) is a table".  This
>>is a sumti with no selbri, since it's quantified, and would likely be
>>interpreted as "about 10 sitting people (do/are something
>>unspecified)", which to me has a slightly different meaning.

>  Hmm. Let's leave it for now, they are doing something.

FIne with me, but see previous messages for other thoughts.

>>>.i ko'a lamji le nunjupca'u

>>"event-of-cooking volume"?  Maybe {jupkumfa}?  It *is* a room, after
>>all, isn't it?  Not sure the {nun-} is necessary, but it's not badly
>>placed.

>  First I had {(nun)jupkumfa} but then wanted to have just the space,
>  not to imply separation at this stage. More lojbo :)

Hrrm.  Still seems a little weird to me, but you're probably absolutely
right here.

>>>.i le jukpa selviska gi'e jukfinti de.a'ucu'i

>>This isn't quite grammatical.  {le jukpa selviska} is a sumti, and
>>you can't have a {gi'e} inside or after only sumti with no selbri.  I
>>take it you wanted {le jukpa cu selviska}?

>  Yep. Colin already pointed that out.

Didn't see Colin's post when I wrote mine.

>>>.i mi pensi.a'e loi selpinxe ckafi.au

>>Thinking about drunk coffee?  Maybe.  I might be thinking about {le
>>nu pinxe loi ckafi} or {le nu ckafi pinxe} or something, but not
>>likely about a mass of drunk-type coffee.

>  Wanted to have a mass of beverage-type coffee, not the event of
>  drinking. The time for that comes later, after contemplating the
>  stuff.

I dunno.  I may have the wrong mental image of {pinxe}.

~mark, tea-drinker.