cmavo hit-list

[Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>]

Here is a list of those cmavo that I do not intend to memorize. Some
I won't use because I think they are too specific, others because I don't
understand what they mean. The list is of course a draft and I could
change my mind about any or all of them.


        ce'a lau tau zai
        ga'e ge'o je'o jo'o lo'a na'a ru'o se'e to'a (character shifts)

Since letterals are really pro-sumti and not letters, these shifts
only augment the number of available pro-sumti, which is already
pretty big. If I want to quote a fragment of, say, Greek writing,
I have to do it with zoi gy .... gy, and the shifts are of no use.
These could be used in mathematics, where Greek letters are very
much used as symbols, but I don't intend to use Lojban for mathematics.
A formula that involves more than two or three symbols quickly becomes
almost incomprehensible if written down in words (be it English or Lojban).
If written down in symbols, it can't be directly read out in grammatical
Lojban anyway, so what's the point of having such an elaborate mekso
system?

        jo'i me'o ku'e ma'o mo'e na'u ni'e nu'a pe'o te'u vei ve'o
        fu'u ge'a fe'i pi'i su'i vu'u fa'i gei ju'u pa'i te'a cu'a
        de'o fe'a ne'o va'a pi'a re'a ri'o sa'i sa'o si'i fu'a ti'o

These are all for MEX, I think, so I won't learn them unless they
ever prove useful in normal conversation or for any text outside
mathematics.

        la'i le'i lo'i

The predicates that need sets as arguments usually work just as well
with masses, but I admit that le'i and lo'i are too traditional to
be ignored, so I will remove them from this list (I already know them
by heart anyway). {la'i} I do find extremely useless, because the set
of things that share a name usually share nothing else.

        nu'o pu'i (modals)

I don't understand them, unless they mean "ka'e jenai puca'a" and
"ka'e je puca'a". If they do mean that, then pu'i doesn't say anything
more than pu, and instead of nu'o one can say ka'e without much
loss. If they mean something else, I don't know what that is.

        jei li'i si'o mu'e pu'u za'i zu'o (abstractions)

{jei} I don't know what it could be used for, since all the examples
are as a substitute for {du'u xukau}, but this is not the same as the
truth value of a bridi.
{li'i} and {si'o} I'm still not sure how to use. And has been using si'o
lately for the opacity examples, but I would use du'u for all of those,
and I don't see what si'o adds to it.
The four subdivisions of {nu} I think I understand, but I never feel
the need to use them instead of the simple {nu}. Maybe I will come to
need them when I become more fluent, but for the moment I don't.

        nu'e (vocative)

Why is this a vocative? It doesn't seem to have anything to do
with the others.


        fi'a (question FA)

This job is already done better by cu'e, I think.


        ze'o zo'a zo'i  (location tenses)

They seem to be very similar to to'o, te'e, fa'a. The tense paper
says something about ones relating to the speaker and the others not,
but why then isn't this a problem with other FAhAs, which could also
relate to the speaker or to some other point?


        bu'a bu'e bu'i  (logically quantified predicate variables)

I don't know how to use them.

        go'a go'e go'u nei (pro-bridis)

It seems an excess to have three pro-bridis for bridis before
the last one. Only one I think would be more than enough. Also,
I can't think of any reasonable use for nei.

        da'e da'u de'e de'u do'i

They also seem too many. It would be nice if they could refer to
only part of a bridi, like the inside of an abstraction.

        si'e (portion selbri)

Seems redundant to mei. What's the difference between {pimusi'e} and
{pimumei}? [From the definition in the cmavo list it would appear
that {resi'e} would be a half, but the examples of the list suggest
it is {pimusi'e}.]

        na'o  (typically)

I don't understand how it differs from ta'e.


        dau fei gai jau rei vai (hex digits)

What a waste of top quality cmavo...


        vu'i sei se'o fu'e fu'o

These are on probation until I work out what they mean :)

(I left out UIs and BAIs, because it is hard to say what is useful
there and what isn't. I think there are quite a few that I will never
use, but I'm not yet sure which ones they are.)

Comments on all this very welcome.

Jorge