WikiDiscuss

WikiDiscuss


BPFK Section: Erasures

Re: BPFK Section: Erasures

Erases the last Lojban word, treating certain special cases as a single word. These cases are due to special cmavo which are identified in their definitions as changing other words into words of the pseudo selma'o any-string or any-word.


I would list the cases instead of saying how they are identified in their definitions, otherwise someone reading this will have to read every definition to find out what they are. If I'm not forgetting anything, there are only five of them anyway: zo-quoted word, lo'u-quoted string of words, zoi-quoted foreign text, bu-lerfu and zei-lujvo.

mi tatpi cisma bu si frumu bu

I'm tired. :-) uh :-(

This is an example only; no-one actually uses bu that way.


But even if no-one uses it that way, the English translation is incorrect.
It should be something like: "I'm tired of :-), I mean, of :-(".
Lerfu are pronouns, not indicators.

"sa" erases the preceding text back until it sees a word of the same selma'o as the word that follows it; this earlier word is also erased. If you have no idea what a selma'o is, read "the same word" for "the same selma'o".


I wouldn't use this chatty style in the definition. If you have no idea what a selma'o is, look it up under "selma'o", but this advice need not be given in the definition of sa. Besides, using the same word, may get you the wrong behaviour.

Words whose selma'o has been changed to any-word or any-string by certain other special cmavo are invisible to "sa" for purposes of deciding what to erase; they are erased as any other word would be.


Again, listing the "certain other special cmavo" would not take long, and it would make the definition more complete. Those certain other special cmavo are zo, ZOI, lo'u, bu and zei.

Maybe something like: words quoted with zo, ZOI or lo'u, or part of a bu- or zei- compound are invisible to "sa" for purposes of...

Multiple "sa" before a word erase back to successively further instances of the same selma'o, one for each "sa".


I don't agree with this rule. It is usually hard enough to locate the last member of the selma'o of the following word. Counting sa's and then counting back for members of a given selma'o seems totally undoable. sa sa should behave as expected: looks for previous occurence of sa, doesn't find any and therefore deletes to the beginning of the text, like sa si and sa su.

To completely destroy an utterance, use "sa", the word that started the utterance, and "si", although this won't work if the word in question will quote "si" (such as "zo").


It also won't work if the word in question has been used more than once, or if another word of the same selma'o has been used. You've already said that sasi and sasu will completely destroy an utterance, so there is no need for this sentence.

Examples of sa Usage All translations of "si" into English are approximate at best.


s/si/sa

su (SU) Erase previous discourse. Erases all words back to the beginning of the discourse or text. More precisely, "su" erases back to the previous word of selma'o NIhO, LU, TUhE, or TO.


I disagree with this rule. I think {su} should always erase to the beginning of the utterance. We already have {sa ni'o}, {sa lu}, {sa tu'e}, {sa to} for the other function, the extra syllable or two is hardly a problem for this rather drastic and hopefully rare function. Having to keep these four selmaho especially identified for su-purposes is an unnecessary burden on the listener.

mi'e xorxes