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<<The form of the tag, in principle, is irrelevant to the form of the

corresponding fi'o predicate.>>

Not what CLL says: page 195-6

<<In practice, most tags were chosen based

on a gismu and thus with a related form, but this was not done

systematically. BAIs do have an officially associated gismu. But not

all tags need have a related gismu, and some may be related to a gismu

that has a totally different form, such as {re'o}, which is {fi'o

lamji}.

(Or maybe {fi'o se lamji}, but in this case it makes little

difference.)

The forms of the tag and related selbri may have mnemonic value but it

is irrelevant for this analysis.>>

As I said, if you are going to insist on your (not CLL’s) version of {fi’o}. There are –this being Lojban – exceptions to the rule, but that does not mean that the rule is not there.

<<> Part of the problem is that I am unsure what language this paper is

about.

> This piece is clearly not about CLL Lojban nor any clearly approved

variant

> on it, since in that langauge the answer is clearly “It has to be {se

bo’a},”

> whereas you allow it might be {bo’a}.

I don't know what you mean. In Lojban, we have different

cases:

ri'a = fi'o rinka

ne'i = fi'o se nenri

re'o = fi'o (se) lamji

> There are, of course (this is Lojban

> after all), exceptions to the rule above, motivated by convenience, I

> suppose, and I gather that your aim is to regularize them by having

us learn

> for each tag what form of the underlying predicate underlies it,

rather than

> just learning that some cases are anomolous. (In the end, I suppose

it is

> going to be about the same amount of work, since the rule will still

cover

> most cases.)

I don't have any such aim. Whatever method you use to learn the

meanings

of the tags, once you know what the tag means, you know at least

roughly

the underlying predicate. Once you know what {ri'a} means, you know

that

it is {fi'o broda} where the x1 of broda is a cause, and once

you know what {ne'i} means, you know that it is {fi'o broda} where

the x1 of broda is a container. You can then argue whether {ne'i} is

closer to {fi'o selnenri} or to {fi'o vasru}, or something else, but it

will never occur to you to say it is {fi'o nenri}.>>

Which is why it is is an irregular formation.

<<> <<The sumti tagged by {ne'i} is the container, the se nenri.

> So {ne'i} is {fi'o se nenri}.>>>>

>

> But that is flat against the rule, i.e., this is a exception made for

> convenence (and then not discussed or justified – not that the

justification

> is not obvious).

An exception to what rule? There is no rule for the forms of tags.>>

It sure looks like one – or rather a set of examples and wording that indicates that they are the paradigm.

<<> <<according to CLL, the cmavo of selma'o BAI are convenient

> abbreviations of the corresponding fi'o tags, so at least

> in theory {bau} is fully equivalent to {fi'o bangu}.>>

>

> And match the predicate in ordering, etc. The claim is also in

doubt, since

> there are many examples like {bau} where the {fi’o} requires glorking

– or

> checking to see what the BAI (if there is one) says – but the BAI

does not

> (cf. tanru and lujvo, I think)

I don't think {fi'o bangu} requires any more glorking than {bau}.

(Or {fi'o se bangu} than {se bau}, or {fi'o te bangu} than {te bau}.)>>

Well, we disagree. I think it is merely that the range of options is very small for {bangu} – although {fi’o te bangu} is pretty obscure – but then so is {tebau}.

<<> The BAI case

> (courtesy of its underlying predicates) is a bit more complex:

>

> Predicate order {X rinka Y}

>

> Tag order (Y ri’a X}

>

> Adverb order {X i ri’a (la’e di’u) Y}

>

> Logical connective transition order: A+B => +A,B

>

> So, from the first part, what should the the afterthought connective

be?

> Generally, the tag order wins this one over the adverbial and the

predicative

> (and thus generates a potential confusion). {Y i ri’a bo X} But,

for BAI,

> the the connective pattern dominates the tag in transition, giving

{ri’a gi Y

> gi X} (the {iju}-{gu} pattern, with the potential problems it

raises).

Actually, it's {ri'a gi X gi Y}, the opposite of the iju-gu pattern.>>

In the pattern you gave (<<{X i ri'a bo Y} corresponds to {ri'a gi X gi Y}>>), the cause element remains in second place and the effect in first when the causal connective is fronted, analogous to the unchanged positions in {u}. CLL has it the opposite way(i.e. {ri’a gi X gi Y}, 8.2 v. 8.1, p.199), but I was dealing with your idea.

<<> For

> PU, the tag order wins out—probably a more satisfying result in the

short

> run.

PU follows iju-gu: {X ibabo Y} = {ba gi X gi Y}>>

Errh, you said <<{X i ba bo Y} corresponds to {ba gi Y gi X}>>. Your current version is that of CLL. Following you, I reversed the orders. The problem remains, though the exemplars shift. Actually, the more interesting problem is the one CLL covers with “As a result” at the bottom of p248, where {X ba Y} is shifted to {Y iba X}. Shifting all that back, it turns out the two cases are exactly parallel: effect ri’a cause => effect iri’abo cause => ri’a gi cause gi effect, and event ba axis => axis ibabo event => ba gi axis gi event, with only the one anomaly of axis ibabo event rather than event ibabo axis, wich is the result of some unmentioned – but referred to – factor.

<<> <<The most intuitive method would have been to make the

> tags take the corresponding x2 as the argument, so

> {pi'o X} for "using X" instead of {se pi'o X},

> {ri'a X} for "causing X", {seri'a X} for "caused by X",

> etc. I know why it wasn't done like that, but that's

> the source of most of the confusion. That's the way {pu}

> and {ba} work with respect to their mnemonic cognates,

> but not with respect to their fi'o-counterparts, of course.

> If fi'o had worked like that, then the mnemonic and fi'o

> counterparts would match for them too.>>

>

> I’m not sure why this is more intuitive – unless you mean “makes the

stuff

> around the tag look more like the stuff around the predicate,” which

it does.

Yes. If I'm not mistaken, prepostions in many natlangs are

related to verbs, and their object is the direct object of the

verb.>>

Some are, some aren’t and whether it is the direct object or the indirect or the subject varies from case to case. It is not a a principle that I would appeal to, since it does not hold to any very marked extent in any language we are likely to be familiar with (Chinese excepted, as usual).

<<> Practically, though, I don’t see that it imroves things any: some

gismu will

> probably give preference to 2nd place ({balvi, nenri}) others to 1st

> ({bangu}) and others split about even ({rinka} and the causals

generally). I

> don’t think one way has a clear Zipfean advantage, so the heuristic

gain of

> having tag and predicate match form for form is probably a deciding

factor.

I wasn't thinking so much of Zipfean advantage as of positional

consistency: the x2 argument typically falls right after the selbri.

The problem with that approach is that only x1 and x2 of the selbri

are easily accessible. To get x3 we would need something like

{fi'o se te se broda}, so that the x3 is in second position.>>

I am inclined to think that is good enough to drop the idea, even though the third and later places are rarely used – except for a few preds.

<<What are the A and B series?>>
Past-Present-Future and Before-After, both temporal and very similar at an abstract level but not mutually definable.