Re: The design of Lojban

[JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

cu'u la markl
>Do you imagine that you are interested in women?  In music?  In
>logic?  In language?  Not so, according to Lojban grammar.  The
>x1 place of {cinri} must be an _abstraction_.

You can still be interested in those, but you can't translate that
"interested" as {cinri}. It is not uncommon that one word in one
language has several different translations in another one. You
might want to translate it as {lo'e ninmu e lo'e zgike e lo'e logji
e lo'e bangu cu trina mi} , or, if you think {trina} is too strong
then perhaps {trimli} or {selju'i} or some other lujvo.

>This raises
>something of a barrier IMO.  And there are other gismu whose
>place structures raise similar barriers.

I agree that they raise barriers because they force you to make
distinctions that you're not used to making in your native language,
but not because they don't allow you to say things you may want
to say.

>Don't try to think
>about defending your country, or your property, in Lojban;
>people can't defend anything in Lojban; only events can do
>that, because the x1 place of {bandu} must be an _event_.

Again, then you're not thinking of {bandu}. You may want to say
{mi badzu'e le mi gugde e le mi selpo'e}.

It would be nicer, though, if there was some system behind
the choice of place structures. It is almost impossible to guess
by analogy with other words whether the x1 of bandu is a person
or an event.

>Perhaps someone, or some event, would care to defend Lojban
>against this charge?

Lojbab has said that he sometimes sees people as events, so
event Lojbab may yet happen to defend it.  :)

co'o mi'e xorxes