hail, rain place structures

[cbmvax!uunet!gnu.ai.mit.edu!grackle!bob]

    How come there isn't more debate on place structures anyway? Oh, I forgot:
    we don't have the current ones. *sigh*

No one ever said you should not attempt to say things in Lojban just
because you haven't got a language!

    .i na ku                            su'o da zo'u     da cusku lu
    It is false that there is at least one x such that   x  says quote 

    ko                   troci     lo  nu         cusku   bau     lo lojbo  
    make true for you  try/attain a process of expressing in language lojban

    nagi'a  lo lojbo cu zasti   li'u
    only if Lojban      exists  end quote

Oops, please bear with me; that was not what I meant to say.

    .i o'o       ta'onai                     
    forbearance  returning to main point     

I want to say something about Lojban, not something in Lojban.

    au      mi cusku lo     sidbo be lo lojbo   
    desire  I  say   a real idea  about Lojban

    gi'e na'e       cusku   zo'e                  bau lo lojbo    
    and  other than express something unspecified in language lojban.


Some of the definitions from the 8/9/88 Baselined
Gismu list confuse me.

    lo                    si'o                       lo       se valsi 
    at least one real  idea/concept abstraction of a real meaning of word

    be fi                    lo lojbo cu cfipu mi
    in (third place) language  lojban confuses me



I am bothered by the lack of parallism for the definitions of
rain, fall and hail:

carvi  cav          rain            rains to...from...
farlu  fal     fa'u fall            fall to...from...
bratu               hail            hail of...falling to...from...

The place structure for `rain' is fine.  Droplets of water rain to the
grass from a cloud; rocks rain on a town from a volcano.

    lo jacdirgo cu carvi lo srasu      lo cimdilnu
    water-drops    rain on  grass from a  wet-cloud
    [djacu dirgo]                         [cilmo dilnu]

    .i lo glaroi         cu carvi lo tcadu     lo     pojca'a
          hot-rocks      rain on   a town from an exploding mountain
        [glara rokci]                               [spoja cmana]

`Fall' is fine, too; it is like `rain'.

    lo jacdirgo cu farlu lo srasu      lo cimdilnu
    water-drops    fall on  grass from a  wet-cloud

But `hail' is a problem.  Raining and hailing are different ways
things fall from the sky; I think the definitions should be parallel.

One should say:

    lo rokci cu bratu lo tcadu         lo cmana
    rocks      hail onto  a town  from a mountain

    .i lo bisli dirgo cu bratu lo dertu  lo      nu               xlatcima
           ice drops     hail onto the earth  from the process of bad-weather
                                                                 [xlali tcima]

I thought about `snow', too.  In English, `snow' is both a kind of
falling and a form of substance; but after some consideration, I think
that the form of substance is the more interesting aspect of the
concept, `snow' is OK as is:

snime          si'e snow            a quantity/expanse of snow

Thus one can say

    lo nu lo xrula pezli cu farlu lo foldi lo brife cu simsa lo nu lo
    snime cu farlu zu'i zu'i

    lo nu
    the event of 

    lo xrula pezli    cu farlu      lo foldi        lo brife
       flower leaves     fall   on the field   from the wind
          [petals]

    cu simsa      lo   nu   lo snime   cu farlu    zu'i zu'i
    is similar to an event of snow       falling to and from typical places



    Robert J. Chassell               bob@gnu.ai.mit.edu
    Rattlesnake Mountain Road        (413) 298-4725 or (617) 253-8568 or
    Stockbridge, MA 01262-0693 USA   (617) 876-3296 (for messages)