Re: cmavo hit-list

[Logical Language Group <lojbab>]

la kris. cusku di'e

> I've only used "di'u" and "di'e" (which you don't include here because
> they're obviously useful).  I wish there was something that could refer to
> *several* sentences, because I often want to refer vaguely to a previous
> block of discourse without really pinpointing one sentence.  But if getting
> out of that habit is more lojbanic, I can learn to live without it.

Don't worry.  The quantifier on these things is "su'o", so they can refer
to more than one chunk of text if necessary.

> >        nu'e (vocative)
> >
> >Why is this a vocative? It doesn't seem to have anything to do
> >with the others.
> 
> It should probably be an evidential, but I think it's useful to have
> "promise" as something other than just the bridi "nupre", to distinguish "I
> have a promise that I've made/will make" from "I hereby promise".  I think
> "mi nupre lenu prami do" would not be as good as "nu'e <cmene> mi ba prami
> do" or maybe "ca'e mi nupre lenu prami do".

This last paragraph neatly captures the difference between the attitudinals
(and COI are really attitudinals with different syntax, because they always
have an explicit referent) and similar bridi claims.

> >        bu'a bu'e bu'i  (logically quantified predicate variables)
> >
> >I don't know how to use them.
> 
> Me neither.  I assume "bu'a" is about the same as "meda"?

Not really.  "meda" assumes that "da" has been bound to a sumti, whereas
"bu'a" is a bridi from the beginning.  The difference is analogous to that
between "ko'a" and "broda".

> >        dau fei gai jau rei vai (hex digits)
> >
> >What a waste of top quality cmavo...
> 
> The dau/fei/gai I like because we've got so many things, like months and
> hours, that come in twelves.  jau/rei/vai are admittedly not very useful; I
> can't think when the last time was I verbally read off a number in hex.
> 
> The use of written numerals is so pervasive in current human languages, and
> letters A-F for hex digits, that I imagine if lojban ever catches on we'll
> see "5710 meters" pronounced as "le mitre beli muzepano" but written as "le
> mitre beli 5710".

Yes, that is correct.

> With decimal numbers that's fine, because "5" can always be read as "mu" and
> you retain the 1-1 correspondence between sound and symbol.  (It would have
> to be correct then, lojbanically, to write "5pli" for "example"!)

No, the symbol "5" replaces the word spelled "mu", not just any instance of
"mu" in text.  (Although the current machine parser doesn't make the
distinction.)

> But if
> hex numbers are written using capital letters A-F it will violate the
> correspondence, as will decimal points and place-holding commas.  The commas
> and periods will be clear from context, but I bet people will be tempted to
> read "5A7" as "mu .abu. ze" rather than "mudauze", simply out of habit,
> since you spell things far more often than you read hex digits.

You may be right.  But reading hex FFFF as "fyfyfyfy." will break the parse,
since that is four sumti.

-- 
John Cowan		sharing account <lojbab@access.digex.net> for now
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.