WikiDiscuss

A> Hmmm! Is that the only stripe we have available? Probably, I suppose. But the BAI etc derived from gismu etc. are as liberated as lujvo are from tanru (perhaps more so). Could we make up a list of all the things that occur often enough and in remote enough places to be worth doing, then free them from association with gismu? Would it be worth it? It would change Lojban markedly and go into some logically very strange places (the virtue of the present system is that it behaves just like first order logic — as it was designed to do.) I am too much of a lumper to be able to see this whole program and it has not panned out in previous attempts, but, when we get to gismu in this process it needs another look-see. I admit that I am often frustrated by finding several almost right wortds, which either have irrelevant or even counterproductive places and lack vital ones, do a mve like would have some support — if my problems are reasonably typical. And learnign gismu would be
easier.
B> This seems to push the freedom of lujvo a bit further than I am comfortable with (the {marji} does not connect naturally with any place of {gasnu}), but once that is done then we can of course create terms for everything, by simple fiat (that is totally unrelated to the underlying tanru) if necessary. I think I prefer the tacked on places approach.
C> But at least there is {zi'o} and perhaps other devices not yet used (I can't think of one, but I am regularly surprised by someone coming up with a critter I never noticed).
D> that was, I think, the same case trying a different word for the selbri.
E> The answer seems to be {carna} but that is suspicious because of "axis;" could that be any center of rotation? Ahah! {muvdu} seem to be the {klama}-without-a-vehicle sought earlier. So {klama} already exists stripped in one way to its essentials (for that meaning of "go/come") — but we lack the "using vehicle..."
F> I am not sure how spatial tenses — as I understant them — will help with {klama}. They don't cover origin or destination or point of arrival or route or vehicle (thank God) or pace or just about anything that we might want with "come/go." They are mainly about the location of the event usually relative to the speaker. The peculiar motion tenses are directions that the event is moving relative to some fixed point (again usually the speaker, but other cases occur). I suppose "go" could be something about motion away from the origin and toward the destination and we could probably get a route or at least some points along it in too. But it takes some conceptual violence to the notion of a spatial tense (not that the notion of motion tenses fits very comfortanbly).

Jorge Llambías <jjllambias2000@yahoo.com.ar> wrote:
pc:
> Well, skip concept and go directly to translating English (where concept
> talk usually ends up anyhow). I think then that there are many common
> English words we get at only through oblique places.

A>Hard to tell. The x3 of {tirxu} for example won't do for the common
word "stripe". I think the intent was that those oblique places
would cover many English words, but the effect was the opposite,
a reduction in the coverage of semantic space. Also, places of the
"under conditions x" and "by standard x" sort are, at least for me,
just a hindrance in the learning of place structures.

> Come to that, how do we
> add on the places that are there now if we lop them off. Is there, for
> example, a word for "out of material x" that is independent of {zbasu}
> ({marji} is no help here)?

B>Why is {marji} of no help? In fact, if {zbasu} didn't exist, I would
use {majgau} for "x1 makes x2 out of material x3". Of course, {marji}
is bloated too with its x3, so that really comes out as
"x1 makes x2 out of material x3 in shape/form x4". Good thing
nobody thought of adding that place to {zbasu}.

> And, of course, the fact that {klama} is one
> concept does not mean that it is not composed of several — even five --
> concepts, into which it may be broken down.

C>That's the problem: it can't really be broken down into simpler concepts,
unless through clumsy means like {zi'o}. With {klama} you get the
full package or nothing.

> Harrdly more restricted from a practical point of view; there is only one
> case that ever comes up when the materials place is inappropriate.

D>There was a similar example with {finti} the other day.

> And
> practicality, rather than raw semantics, was a guiding principle in gismu
> creation.

I'm not arguing for raw semantics though, and I don't even think
{zbasu} is one of the worst offenders, three places is still
manageable. But I think that bloatedness in general goes against
practicality.

> That's not to say that the constructors didn't err sometimes — in
> both directions (though, admittedlly, mainly in havimg too many places).

Right, nobody expects them not to have erred sometimes. It would be nice
if there was something we could do about it though.

> Probably not, since there is neither origin nor destination nor vehicle,
> only route.

E>Right, and there is nothing for going without origin, destination
and vehicle. {litru} comes close, but it has a vehicle. So what
does the Earth do? {muvdu} is also too heavy.

> So {klama} is not very good for "go" in a lot of cases (not
> news, since it already is said to cover "come" as well).

F>{klama} covers come and go, but only a fairly restricted sense of
come and go. A one place predicate "x1 comes/goes" coupled with
the wide variety of spatial tenses Lojban offers would cover much
more ground. As it is, the spatial tenses are wasted because there
are almost no predicates that will support them. If you try to use
spatial tenses with {klama} you mostly get nonsense.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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