Re: Colin on JimC on Frank's easy text

[jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU]

Colin Fine <C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK> writes:
> > I [jimc] anxiously await comments on how authoritative "le cmalu mlatu" is,
> >that is, whether it means exactly the same as "le mlatu poi cmalu" (not
> >likely), or is a metaphor along the lines of "broken heart", or whether
> >you have to kind of guess which cat is referred to.
>
> I interpreted it as "le mlatu poi cmalu". What's the problem?

The problem is, you're too human.  Imagine Nick's Prolog project; how can
it decide what interpretation to use?  To us, it's obvious that this tanru
is supposed to be restrictive.  But it doesn't mean "exactly the same as le
mlatu poi cmalu" because there's no rule that says it does, and there _is_
a "rule" that says that tanru represent metaphors.  Presently there's
a lot of discussion about a cmavo "pe'e" (right?) which would be required
in a true metaphor, and if that were legislated then we could be sure
that an unmarked tanru represented one or another kind of restriction.

The debate would then shift to the various kinds of restriction, and how
you recognize which kind is intended.  Sound familiar?

> > [jimc's comment about style...]
>
> I emphatically reject this comment. I too would tend to put the main selbri
> first (just 'fanta lenu ...') but neither Jim nor I has any business
> lecturing Frank on stylistics. Lojban stylistics are wide open.

Here's a two-volume textbook in German.  All the verbs are in the second
volume.  :-)  I'm coming from a position that there are universal values
of style, one of which is that you should put organizing info first, short
stuffings next, and the longest stuffing last.  By this criterion, German
(and any SOV language and particularly OSV languages) is unredeemably
lacking, i.e. to improve its style you would have to turn it into
something that is not German.  I'm not going to get into a flame war
(particularly with people who LIKE the German style), because it's a
matter of taste, but I wanted to explain that my comment was based on
a universal principle, rather than on a non-existent Lojban style guide.

One aspect I like a lot about Lojban is how easy it is to do VSO,
compared to English and other natural languages I am familiar with.
But the special rule for observatives says that if zero sumti preceed
the selbri, the ones after it are numbered starting from 2.  This puts
a crimp in rampant VSO-ism.

> As usage has grown up, the category of observative does not seem to be
> significant - the x1 may be elided like any other tergismu. Probably Jim wil
> be upset about this.

Not at all -- I would very much like to see this legislated.  Specifically
(*proposed rule*): In a bridi, the sumti (before and after the selbri) are
assigned numbers in a single group.  If one or more sumti come after the
selbri, they are not specially distinguished from those before it.

So when you want to elide x1, you use an explicit "fe" as I did.

On the issue of observatives, a long time ago Parks-Clifford put forward
an interpretation of language behavior which impressed me very much.
He said that the reason you say something is to call the listener's
attention to its referent.  The archetype of such an utterance is saying
a bare sumti, e.g. "A crocodile!"  A jufra (sentence) is interpreted
in a similar way, as calling attention to a relation between zero or more
sumti.  Thus, *everything* is an observative.

Nonetheless, I agree with Colin (well, I hope I'm agreeing with him)
that what are commonly referred to as observatives do not need any
special grammatical support, particularly considering how rare they
are in presently seen Lojban text.

> I think you must be misinterpreting "cliva" as 'live'.

You're right!  With the correct interpretation ("leave") the sentence
makes a lot more sense.

> >> .i le mlatu cu to'e nelci le nu vitke le danlu mikce

> Insofar as there are rules of interpretation, the x1 (which is here the cat)
> is the [guest]. I agree that there are cases which are unsatisfactorily
> vague: I don't think this is one of them.

Again, I agree that the interpretation of this sentence is transparently
obvious to humans who are familiar with typical English usage and who
have seen some Lojban.  But an entity lacking "common sense" has no
chance to interpret a sentence like this without rules -- which we
do not have at this time.

James F. Carter        Voice 310 825 2897       FAX 310 206 6673
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