Re: Quantifiers (was Re: A modest proposal #2: verdicality)

[ucleaar <ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk>]

The sage voice of John Cojban admonishes:
> > Anyway, IMHO the syntax of sumti needs both rethinking and debugging.
> > From the state of this part of the grammar, I'd guess that it's
> > {puta'e} been patched; I think a rewrite rather than further patching
> > is in order.
> We're not at a stage where a rewrite is acceptable.  This is a stage
> many new and enthusiastic learners go through.  First, however, it's
> important to learn what has already been defined; it turns out to be
> more subtle than you expect.  (I speak from experience.)

But once one has learnt what has been defined one learns not that
radical change would not lead to improvement but that achieving even the
slightest change constitutes, however great the improvements they'd
confer, a monumental triumph over the forces of conservatism.
Advocating grammar change in Lojbania is like advocating gun control in
the USA; sweet reason neither butters parsnips nor carries the day.  My
ambition is to look back in my dotage and tell my grandchildren "See
that cmavo?  It was me that got it into the language" (One giant leap
for man, one small step for mankind), and they'll look on me not with
pity but with great awe and reverence, thereafter boasting to their
peers, to general gasps of iacuhi and ianai, mingled with uhe.io, "Ti le
bahe mibrorpatfu oha oha cu cmavo se fuzme".

---
And