Re: How jai and tu'a work

[ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>]

Thanks, Chris. This is very useful. Up till now I was baffled.

>  tu'a la lojbab.               bapli    lenu mi'o tavla bau la lojban.
>  (some event concerning Lojbab) forces  (the event of me-you talk in Lojban)

My maoste has {tua} = "the bridi implied by". To me a bridi is a du'u
- something that is true or false, not an event in the midst of a network
of interacting forces. I think there is a general confusion in jbobau
selsku between events and propositions.

In this context, something like old {me} would be better: {le me la
lojbab}, or {le nu me la lojbab}. With old {me} gone, maybe
{le la lojbab coe}, or {le la lojbab fasnu}.

> JAI
> {jai} does the same thing as {tu'a}, except it only works for the x1
> place. You stick it onto the selbri rather than the x1 sumti. So our
> sentence would become:
>   la lojbab.          jai bapli                 lenu mi'o tavla bau la lojban.
>   Lojbab.   (well, some event conc. him)forces  (event of we speak Lojban)

Ah! Now I see. And I see why Nick told me, in the context of a discussion
of sumti raising, that he was proud of being responsible for JAI. Thinking
he meant JAI BAI, I could see why he was proud of it, but I couldn't see
why it was relevant for sumti raising. I agree with Nick that it's a very
good device.

---
And