Re: self-descriptions?

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

Chris:
> >[Lojbab:
> >> Fine, use brivla.  Tenses apply to whole bridi.
> >This is a pretty ugly solution: {citno bao kei bao ralju}, or
> >{citno me kei bao ralju}, or {citno zio kei bao ralju} - they're
> >all ugly. Semantically, ZAhO works quasitanruishly, like NAhE,
> >so I think it oughtn't to apply to whole bridi.]
> Are those even grammatical?

As far as I know they are.

> I think he meant something like {selfanmo citno ke ralju} and
> {selfanmo ke citno ralju}.

That's irksome, because every ZAhO must be duplicated by a lujvo,
just because ZAhO has the wrong syntax. And moreover, these
examples would give true tanru, whereas ZAhO, like NAhE, are
more rule governed semantically than true tanru.

> Or you ought to be able to use zei: {citno ba'o zei ralju} or {ba'o zei
> citno ralju}.

The second is "president who is no longer young". How to get "person
who is no longer a young president"?

> >> Fi-fa-fu-Lojban is very obfuscating, especially in
> >> combination with jaifau-Lojban.
> >Is there a clear reason for that, apart from its unfamiliarity?
> Yes. fi-fai-fo-fum are very much like cases, but the fo-ative case
> doesn't have a generic meaning outside a particular selbri. Maybe the
> fa-ative tends to be nominative and the feative is accusative, but by
> the time you're at the 3rd or 4th place the meaning is completely
> context-dependent.

But why is this harder than usage without FA (i.e. in normal
x1, x2, x3 ... order)?

> >Well by that reasoning we ought to have a NU for every sumti.
> >If        le nu broda koa koe kei = le jaifau broda be koa bei koe,
> >then let  le fa'a'a broda koa koe kei = le broda be koa bei koe
> >          le fe'e'e koa broda zoe koe kei = le se broda be koa bei koe
> >etc. That's actually a good idea. But I don't like the event
> >argument being singled out for special treatment.
> That is an interesting idea. I haven't grokked your criticism of NU before
> now.

That's actually my criticism of {nu} in particular. Against NU in general,
as currently constituted, I levelled a range of other criticisms.

---
And