Lujvo paper, part 3.1

[Nick Nicholas <nsn@MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU>]

3. Lujvo place ordering.

Even more important in making predictably understandable lujvo is having
the place structure agree with some conventions. If this does not occur,
very real ambiguities can turn up. Take for example the lujvo {jdaselsku},
prayer. In the phrase {di'e jdaselsku la dong.}, is Dong the person making the
prayer, or the entity to whom the prayer is directed? We can resolve such
problems on a case-by-case basis for each distinct lujvo. But this makes the
task of learning lujvo place structures virtually impossible. Humans need
consistent patterns to make sense of what they learn. Such patterns are
discernible in gismu place structures, and are even more necessary in lujvo
place structures. Case-by-case consideration is still necessary; lujvo
creation is a subtle art, in which rules cannot be applied blindly. Still, it
is best to take full advantage of any regularities present.

Gismu place structures tend to be ordered according to importance. There is
an implication in the place structure of {klama}, for example, that {lo
klama} will be talked about more often, and is thus more important, than
{lo se klama}, which is in turn more important than {lo xe klama}. A similar
tendency may be observed in lujvo, but this criterion is too subjective and
context-dependent to use as the primary ordering criterion, though it may have
an effect in deciding the final structure. After all, it presumes the lujvo
place structure has no relation with its component gismu, a position we have
rejected.

Instead, we use the following guidelines:

3.1. Gismu place ordering consistency.

The places of the component gismu appearing in the final lujvo should not
be arbitrarily re-ordered. Rather, they should appear in the order they have
in the original gismu, allowing for interleaving with places from other
gismu.

To illustrate this, let us consider the lujvo {jdaselsku} again. The places
of jdaselsku deemed relevant are: le cusku, le se cusku, le te cusku,
le ve cusku, le lijda. It is presumed that le cusku is equivalent to le
se lijda. Now the component gismu {selsku} has its arguments appear in the
following order:

{le se cusku cu selsku le cusku le te cusku le ve cusku}.

The GDS of {jdaselsku} will be something like:

{le se cusku cu selsku le se lijda be le lijda be'o cusku le te cusku le
ve cusku}.

Based on this, in the final lujvo, {le cusku} (the person making the prayer)
should precede {le te cusku} (the entity to which the prayer is addressed),
and the place structure we have proposed is: c2 c1=l2 c3 c4 l1.

Interestingly, the lujvo was first proposed in the phrase {le jdaselsku be la
jegvon.} That is, the {te cusku} was the *second* argument of the lujvo, which
would presumably have the place structure c2 c3 c1 c4 l1. One could argue for
such a structure: "a prayer to X by Y" may order its arguments more familiarly
than "a prayer by X to Y". But we contend that such rearrangement from the GDS
place order is usually unneccesary and confusing, with no substantial advantage
over the order we propose, which echoes the place order of {selsku}, and is
thus more predictable.

The ordering principle should be maintained even if places from other gismu
are interleaved with the gismu being considered.

Thus in {jditadji}, we decidced the relevant places were: t1, t3, j1, j3.
The GDS is: le tadji cu tadji lenu le jdice cu jdice zo'e le te jdice kei
le te tadji. To echo this place structure, and to apply our ordering
principle, the places should appear in the order: t1 j1 j3 t3. t1 precedes
t3, and j1 precedes j3.

There will be cases where the component gismu have many places in common,
and each gismu orders these places differently. To be consistent with GDS,
we choose the rightmost gismu in the equivalent tanru as the gismu whose
place structure is used. This is because it is closest to being the
head of the tanru, the tertanru, on which the place structure of a tanru
is based.

For example, in {ctucku}, textbook, we have the following places:
ct1=cu3, ct2=cu4, ct3, ct4=cu2, ct5, cu1, cu5. We could order the places
based on the place structure of {ctuca}, as given above, or based on
{cukta}, as follows:
cu1, cu2=ct4, cu3=ct1, cu4=ct2, cu5, ct3, ct5.
Since a ctucku, a ctuca cukta, is a kind of cukta, the GDS will be like:
le cukta cu te ctuca be le ve cukta bei le te ctuca bei le se cukta bei
le xe ctuca be'o cukta le se cukta le te cukta le ve cukta le xe cukta.
Thus it makes sense to use the latter place structure.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nick S. Nicholas,                      "Rode like foam on the river of pity
CogSci & CompSci student,               Turned its tide to strength
University of Melbourne, Australia.     Healed the hole that ripped in living"
nsn@{munagin.ee|mundil.cs}.mu.oz.au           - Suzanne Vega, Book Of Dreams
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