Re: ciska bai tu'a zo bai

[Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>]

la kris di'e cusku

> i la lojban cu traji xamgu pevlivla le besna
> i ku'i leli'i mutce cu te ckape .ii

i ie le dukse be lo xamgu cu ka'e xlali

> i xu? do terpa gi'a se ruble tu'a le besna
> isemu'ibo zo'o ko se pevlivla la lojban. .u'o na.e la esperanton. .u'onai

i ju'o la lojban ba gasnu le nu do binxo le tsali
i ly do zengau le ka cinse joi gletu kakne uiro'u
i ko terve'u pa botpi ija'ebo do le remoi cu cpacu co pleji be noda


> >> 7.1)    ko ga'inai nenri klama le mi zdani
> >>         you-imperative [low-rank!] enter type-of come-to my house.
> >>         Honorable one, enter my unworthy house.
> >> -----------------
> >        ko ga'i nenri klama le mi zdani ga'inai
>
> Actually I changed my mind after reading the revised version.  I think the
> author meant to say that the attitudinal expresses how you feel in rank when
> compared with the modified word -- quite the opposite from the Japanese
> convention.  Since the attitudinal is relative to the speaker it would never
> (I presume) be correct to say "mi ga'i" or "mi ga'inai" since you can't be
> ranked differently from yourself.  Again quite different from Japanese.

And yet {mi ga'i} and {mi ga'inai} are probably where {ga'i} has seen most use.
I like the Japanese convention, if I understand it correctly: the attitudinal
shows the rank that the speaker feels the marked object has (wrt to the speaker
or wrt to general conventions). This is much more flexible, because it allows
for example to refer to someone of the same (high or low) rank, which otherwise
you couldn't do explicitly, by marking {mi} with the same attitudinal.

Jorge