Re: TECH: pe'a/po'a proposal (long)

[John Cowan <cowan@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>]

la nitcion. cusku di'e

> I don't have the time to analyse the lujvo corpus *sigh*, but it is true
> that what can be analysed as the heads of tanru do not always appear in
> final position --- if the tanru can be said to have a head at all. Thus
> a {balvi speni} is not a {speni} at all, but a {balvi};

Oh, I don't know.  If the future is realis, then the {balvi speni} is
definitely a {speni} seen as a tenseless relation.

> and a {blari'o} =
> {blanu joi crino} is not a {crino}.

I read {blari'o} as meaning "bluish green" = something between cyan and
green, not as a "joi" mixture.  Classically, "blanu joi crino" connotes
stripes, or polka dots, or the like.

> In any case, I think it more advantageous that we consider metaphoricity
> (urgh) to be a continuum, that we allow {pe'acu'e} to cover these cases
> between literalness and outright no relation to the tertanru; and since
> {pe'acu'e} will be doing {po'a}'s proposed job, to drop {po'a} (which at
> this stage would be greatly appreciated).

I think I agree with this view, but I will try to post more on it later.
Note that Lojbab talks about "no'e" as the midpoint, and Nick talks about
"cu'e", but they both clearly mean "cu'i", the neutral member of CAI.
Yes, the cmavo are too densely packed.  No, we can't do anything about it.

> Incidentally: I think the North/South/East/West FAhA cmavo should be
> dropped and replaced with appropriate {fi'o} expression, since FAhA is
> clearly open-ended, languages can come up with an indefinite number of
> basic categories, and I don't think having North as {be'a} (or whatever)
> instead of {fi'o berti} actually accomplishes that much.

There are two main purposes.  {pamai}, some languages use the compass points
as normal references, rather than using the body-centric left/right/front/back.
Navajo is the stock example.  {remai}, FAhAs can be stacked to produce
complex directions like "northeast by north" very easily, whereas BAIs can't.

--
John Cowan      cowan@snark.thyrsus.com         ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan
                        e'osai ko sarji la lojban.