Re: Three grammar questions

la djim. kartr. cusku di'e:
> 1.  la bantas. mlatu -- Bantha is a cat.
> 	Is /cu/ required, or conversely, is "bantas. mlatu" (Bantha 
> 	runner?) a tanru?  Or is this suppressed merely because the first
> 	term is a name?  

"cu" is not required, and this is not a tanru.  Names are acceptable in
only two contexts in Lojban (other than inside quotes, of course):
	"la bantas." = "the-one-named Bantas"
	"doi bantas." = "O Bantas!"

You can substitute any member of COI for the "doi", provided there is a
separating pause; you can also omit the COI/DOI altogether at the
beginning of text.

> 2.  la bantas. cu klama fi le stizu mi -- Bantha goes from the chair to
> 	me?  or via me?  After an explicit caselink, following unnumbered
> 	sumti fill unoccupied cases in order, or numbers after the 
> 	explicit one?

The official answer is "numbers after the explicit one".

The word "caselink" is bogus, bogus, bogus!  Even accepting the term
"case" as a substitute for "place", these don't link anything.
"{case,place} marker" is more like it.

> 3.  ko'a stizu -- it is a chair (from lesson 2).  Am I correct that this
> 	is technically incorrect since ko'a has not been assigned an
> 	antecedent with goi?  Correct would be ti goi ko'a /cu/ stizu

Yes, this is incorrect.  Ko'a-series pro-sumti are meaningless until
assigned.

> 4.  All of us had a lot of resistance to the pauses after names, 
> 	particularly zo lojban.  I even told them (incorrectly) that it
> 	is a lujvo.  (My excuse: I'm used to thinking of N as a vowel.)

ko cortu zo'o

-- 
cowan@snark.thyrsus.com		...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban