Re: pensyrespa

la stivn. cusku di'e

> Actually, this utterance would be impossible for an hypothermic human.
> Living in the midwest, and attending to the care of street people, I have
> had several patients with that degree of hypothermia. Physiologically, 5=B0C
> is a *big* deficit. Enzyme reaction rates are nearly halved. Coma is an
> invariable consequence. So the <mi> of the statement could not be human,
> because comatose humans do not construct utterances.

I bow to your superior expertise.

> Actually,
> poikilothermy is a fuzzy concept. Fish and reptiles *can* partially
> regulate their internal body temperatures through several means, such as
> variable muscular activity (demonstrated in tuna), rete mirable or other
> countercurrent heat exchange mechanisms or by seeking environmental sources
> or sinks of heat. I actually like the idea of pensyrespa, though. Maybe
> lojban is the lost language of the dinosaurs... :-)

Sounds good to me; Harry Harrison's description of Yilan\'e sounds like a
garbled version of Lojban tanru...

Also, aren't there recorded cases of human poikilothermy?  H.P. Lovecraft
was one such, if I remember -- he couldn't tolerate temperatures below
80 deg. F., and once collapsed on the street on a balmy spring day.

> But for beginners, I think it is confusing to use cu in this way.
> Doesn't your sentence work only because <bisli> and <djacu> are one-place
> gismu?

No.  Descriptors like "le" accept a following selbri only, not a full
bridi; if you want to fill x2 or later places of that selbri, you must use
"be...bei...be'o" glue.

> Wouldn't you need a <ku> to prevent a multi-place sumti from sucking
> up the rest of the utterance?

No; there are no "multi-place sumti".

> Either <ku> or <cu> may be elidible in many
> expressions, but the early introduction of <le...ku> illustrates an
> important simple construct: how to parethensize sumti, which is not well
> explained in the reference grammer texts, though it is explained in one of
> the old lessons (Lesson 2?). I would argue for supporting it early in the
> textbook.

Remember, however, that this paper is part of the reference grammar, not the
textbook.  In point of fact, fastpace.txt (A Fast-Paced Introduction)
will be an early reference-grammar chapter, and it uses precisely this
technique.  This paper is a modified version of the Diagrammed Grammar
Summary.

> A word on getting these files.

[troubles deleted]

I can't reproduce any of your problems from any of several different sites.
Complain loudly to your local sysadmin.

-- 
John Cowan					cowan@ccil.org
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.