methods of resolving mismatches between place structures and number of overt sumti
Okay, aside from the remark about whether the
speaker realized there was a place to fill or
thought about what to fill it with, this
discussion seems beside the point. Our native
speaker of Lojban will (I think) still leave
blanks in what he says for a variety of reasons
-- at least the one listed and perhaps others. I
think even assuming that he always knows that and
why he is leaving a gap is pressing ones luck a
bit (I leave gaps in English wihtout thinking
about it, after all, and with no discernable
reason). So, I think this divsion will continue
to apply even for totally competent users.
> On Apr 5, 2005 1:09 PM, John E Clifford
> <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > A bit more systematically, when a blank is
> > challenged, the speaker — who probably left
> it
> > blank witout thinking about it, maybe even
> with
> > realizing there was a place to fill — should
> > consider these questions and answer
> accordingly.
>
> In my view, we must distinguish two situations:
> 1) The speaker is an ideal fluent speaker with
> full
> command of the language.
> 2) The speaker is a current less than fluent
> speaker
> with struggling command of the language.
>
> I don't dispute that your recipee probably
> applies for 2.
> But a fluent speaker with full command of the
> langusge
> will not leave a blank without realizing there
> was a place
> to fill. If fluent speakers do that, then in
> fact there is no
> such place to fill: the predicate has lost that
> place if it ever
> had it. Of course even fluent speakers will
> sometimes
> misuse a word, but in that case when challenged
> they
> will retract the word and replace it with a
> more appropriate
> one, maybe even replace {broda} with {broda be
> zi'o}, but
> knowing that in that case {broda} by itself was
> inappropriate.
>
> Let me illustrate with an example. {jbena} in
> the gi'uste is
> defined as:
>
> x1 is born to x2 at time x3 birthday and
> place x4 birthplace;
>
> Someone who has not incorporated the full place
> structure
> might naively say something like: {le mi
> selfamti pu jbena
> ca le prulamdei} intending to say "my
> niece/nephew was born
> yesterday". But taking the place structure of
> {jbena} seriously,
> the tenses there make very little sense. If the
> niece/nephew was
> born on April 4, 2005, that fact was true
> yesterday, it is true
> today and will be true at any other time. So:
>
> le selfamti cu jbena fi li 2005;04;04 ca le
> prulamdei
> le selfamti cu jbena fi li 2005;04;04 ca le
> cabdei
> le selfamti cu jbena fi li 2005;04;04 ca le
> bavlamdei
> le selfamti cu jbena fi li 2005;04;04 ze'e
> ku
>
> The tense gives no useful information to
> someone who takes
> the place structure seriously. Of course what
> was meant was
> to use some other predicate that refers to the
> act of birth, which
> did happen yesterday and not today or tomorrow,
> and not to
> some abstract relationship between two people,
> a date and
> a place. {jbena} is bloated. Without an x3 and
> x4 it would be
> a more useful relationship, that could be used
> for the actual act
> of birth (and also tagged with a date {de'i} or
> site {tu'i} if so
> desired.)
>
> A fluent speaker that accepts {jbena} to have
> four places
> will simply not say {le mi selfamti pu jbena ca
> le prulamdei}.
>
> mu'o mi'e xorxes
>
>
>
>