Re: A few questions/comments after 16 hours of study

["Lee Daniel Crocker (none)" <lcrocker@MERCURY.COLOSSUS.NET>]

> [sic] mo tavla zo'e lojban
> Alternatively... Does anyone speak lojban?

{ma tavla zo'e la lojban}

I'll first assume that you mean {ma} here rather than {mo}.
{ma} asks the listener to fill in a sumti; {mo} asks for a
brivla (in this case, part of a tanru), and so would be asking
"In what way does someone unspecified speak in Loglan?"

Your question about "thinking in Loglan" would probably best
be expressed using the modal {bau}: {ma pensi bau la lojban}.
{pensi} doesn't have a place for the language of thought (if
such an idea really exists), so you have to make one.

> One thing I noticed about "mo" is it seems remarkably like a unification
> variable from prolog. But is it only intended to return a single value or
> can it also be used to request of the set of all values that satisfy the
> condition specified by the bridi?

{ma} and {mo} only request one example that would fit, but you
could certainly ask for a whole set with something like
{ma du ro ko'a poi tavla zo'e la lojban}, "What is-equivalent-to
all of those who-necessarily speak in Loglan?"

--
Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html>
"All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past,
are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified
for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC