TECH: Higley on JOI

["(Logical Language Group)" <lojbab@GREBYN.COM>]

                               new JOI

    Has it ever been considered that some of the members of selma'o
BAI might be better construed as members of a conjunctive selma'o such
as JOI?  In particular we have mau and me'a.  To borrow a natural
language analogy, aren't these much more like conjunctions than like
prepositions, much more like non-logical connectives than like sumti
tcita?
    Take a look at a sentence with a JOI connective:  mi djica lo
vanju ku ce lo djacu  "I want the wine and the water."  Here both
things are se djica.  This sentence can be expanded to:  mi djica lo
vanju ice mi djica lo djacu.  The "force" of the x2 place of djica is
distributed to both sumti linked by ce.  Now look at a sentence con-
taining semau "more than":  mi djica lo vanju nesemau lo djacu  "I
want the wine more than (I want) the water."  Here the sumti "lo
vanju" is the x2 place of djica, and semau lo djacu is simply linked
to it as a modifier.  Awkward!   It is clear semantically, though it
is not true grammatically in this case, that lo djacu is a kind of
"spiritual" x2 place of djica.  Why not make it one explicitly?  Think
how much clearer and easier it would be to say mi djica lo djacu ku
mau lo vanju or mi djica lo vanju ku semau lo djacu DD regarding these
as JOI.
    In this way they could even be used in tanru, just as the members
of JOI are.  We could say le karce cu xunre semau narju "The car was
more red than orange."  With the current definition of the grammar, I
can't even imagine how to say something like this.  You can see how
much easier it is to do if we change the grammar of mau and me'a.
    Sentences too could be linked much more easily this way.  We could
say le karce cu xunre isemau ri narju.
    I think the main reason why mau and me'a were included in BAI in
the first place is that when the list of gismu were sorted to look for
candidates for inclusion in the BAI set, zmadu and mleca seemed obvi-
ous choices.  But I think it's fairly clear that they are conjunctive
and not modificatory in nature, as evidenced by the current awkward-
ness of their usage.  Please consider changing their status.  (I am
currently looking through BAI to see if any others of its members need
to be put into a new conjunctive selma'o.)  Actually, zo me'a du lu
semau li'u  ije zo mau du lu seme'a li'u.  This is a little redundant.
I suggest me'a for "less than" and mau for "more than".  This is
opposite to the current definition, but seems more intuitively cor-
rect.  Their conversions, seme'a and semau would be unnecessary.
Keeping their place structure integrity would be irrelevant, since
they would no longer be BAI.
    Try "playing around" with these as conjunctive cmavo, and see if
they aren't much easier to use.
    Below are a few sentences designed to show the potential range of
use of my suggested definition of me'a and mau:

      1.   mi mau la djan djica le nu klama ta
           I more than John want to go there.
      2.   mi djica le nu klama ta  imau la djan go'i
           I want to go there more than John does.
      3.   mi djica le nu klama ta me'a la rom
           I want to go there less than to Rome.
      4.   mi pumauca nelci lo vanju
           I was more than I am fond of wine.
      5.   mi dzukla mau bajykla
           I am more a walker than a runner.

    Perhaps you can think of some more structures in which mau and
me'a might be useful.

Greg Higley