WikiDiscuss

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 05:31:01 -0800 (PST), John E Clifford wrote:
> To summarize and old point about sumtcita: the
> connection between a sumtcita and some brivla
> mentioned in connection with it is heuristic, not
> definitional. That is, the sumtcita may have a
> meaning that is not exactly to be found in the
> brivla and conversely.

I think CLL treats it as definitional.

> Further, even insofar as
> the sumtcita and the brivla are directly related,
> the sumtcita brings into a sentence the semantics
> of only the one place indicated, not the whole
> semantics of the brivla.

This assumes that places have semantics independent
of the brivla. I take lojban brivla to be relationships, not
collections of several concepts in one word. I think that's
the spirit of the language, even though many gismu
place structures do look like collections of related
concepts instead of one relationship between a number
of arguments.

Thus:
> 1) looking for a transformational equivalent of a
> sentence with a sumtcita which has the indicated
> brivla as selbri is never decisive for themeaning
> of the sumtcita'd sentence, though it is often at
> leat helpful in figuring it out.

I don't have a problem with that.

> 2) the fact that a brivla has a place does not
> mean that that place is usefully to be added to
> sentences, so looking for all the possible
> variations on a sumtcita to match the place of
> the associated brivla is often useless work; wait
> until the form is used and then figure out what
> it means — don't borrow trouble.

All variations will appear on the dictionary, so we want
examples for all, even if they are unlikely to end up being
used.

mu'o mi'e xorxes