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Lesson 3

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Saved by Rex May
on April 5, 2014 at 12:43:42 pm
 

LESSON THREE — Names

 

Names are a particular category of word in Ceqli. A name usually behaves

like a pronoun, in that it stands for something in particular, not a category

of things. The name janzo means "John," and you can tell it's a name

because all names are marked with the suffix -zo. It's not a usual

compound, because it has nothing to do, necessarily, with the meaning

of the first element in the compound, in this case jan, which happens

to be the verb "to know" in Ceqli.

 

janzo jan japanzo. John knows Japanese.

 

You see that japanzo is also a name. Often, any 'proper name' is

capitalized in English, and that's a hint that the Ceqli equivalent will

also be a name.

 

Ethnic/linguistic/national names are a special problem. You can usually

tell from context whether you're talking about Japan, a Japanese person,

or the Japanese language.

 

go japanzo. I am Japanese.

go bebol japanzo. I speak Japanese.

go ja japanzo. I go to Japan.

 

However, in case of possible confusion, the name can combine with:

 

haym country, jin person, and bol language.

 

japanzohaym bel. Japan is beautiful.

japanzobol bel. Japanese (language) is beautiful.

japanzojin bel. Japanese people are beautiful.

japanzokyoyo bel. Japanese culture is beautiful.

 

Names behave in the same grammatical way that pronouns do, and when haym or bol, etc. is compounded to the end of a zo name, the whole thing becomes a name, and that behaves like a pronoun.

 

CONNECTIVES

 

Ceqli connectives are based on the Loglan connectives. They are:

 

kay - and (from Esperanto)  

kaw - and/or (from Esperanto)

fio - if and only if (English "if only" reworked)

dali - whether or not (Bulgarian)

 

da corn kay hyun. He is black and is a dog.

da corn kaw hyun. He is black or is a dog, and possibly both.

da corn fio hyun He is black if and only if is a dog.

da corn dali hyun. He is black whether he is a dog or not.

 

These are all based on the principles of symbolic logic.

 

To say "if" a compound connective is used:

 

bukaw - if

 

da corn bukaw hyun. If he is black, he is a dog.

 

The logic of this is hard to penetrate, but it actually makes sense. The bu applies to the first clause, so what we're saying is that

 

He is not-black or he's a dog, and possibly both.

 

Let's say he's not-black. Then, according to that sentence, it's possible that he's a dog, and also that he's not a dog. So far, so good.

 

Let's say he's black. Then, still according to that sentence, it's certainly possible that he's a dog, but is it possible for him not to be a dog?

 

Well, the first clause is untrue. He is black, not not-black. So what about the second clause? It can't be untrue, because of the truth values of and/or.

 

X and/or Y. Look at it. Both can be true, or one true and the other false. They can't both be false. So if the first clause, "He is not-black" is untrue (which it is — he's black), then the second clause has to be true, so he is a dog.

 

Suppose you want to say the "opposite"....

 

He is black if he's a dog.

 

Very simple. You switch buja around to kawbu, making the bu refer to the second clause, and you have the same sort of phenomenon with the truth tablekaw

 

da corn kawbu hyun. He is a dog if he's black.

 

Here's a table that might be helpful:

 

X kay Z sta ci. X and Y are here

X kaw Z sta ci Either X or Y (and maybe both) are here.

X fio Z sta ci. X, if and only if Y, is here. X is here if and only if Y is here.

X dali Z sta ci. X, whether or not Y, is here.

X bukaw Z sta ci. X is here only if Z (is here).

X kawbu Z sta ci. X is here if Z (is here).

 

Now, these connectives can be used in much the same way as their English equivalents. However, Ceqli can be made more precise when necessary.

 

pikay means 'and', of course, but it's a special way of connecting only single words.  It's a short-scope connective:

 

to hyun kom pikay dorm. The dog eats and sleeps.

 

It connects kom and dorm. Seldom necessary, and certainly not in this case, but it makes it clear that it's not connecting to xyen kom and dorm.

 

Likewise, the word ga means that a connective is wide-scope.  Hence, gakay is a way to unambiguously connect whole sentences.

 

to xyen kom gakay to felin dorm.

 

Again, to hyun kom kay to felin dorm. is usually not going to be taken ambiguously, though it could be by a computer. Hence, such pi and ga compounded connectives can come in handy for eliminating all possible ambiguity when talking to computers or lawyers.

 

And here are more examples of usage:

 

 

ta hyun kom ta karn gakay ta para kom ta tsaw.

Dogs eat meat and cattle eat grass.

 

to fawl gi ziq gakaw go drim.

 

The bird is singing or I'm dreaming (or both).

 

 

 

go fu ven gafio zi tayarzay to twaykomxiq.

I will come if (and only if) you make dinner.

 

janzo bol gadali go tiq da.

John talks whether I hear him or not.

 

go fey pren zi gabukaw zi tal.

I can understand you only if you speak.

 

go fu kom ba gakawbu zi ten komxto.

I will eat if you have food.

 

Finally, in a set of modifiers, the "pyu" forms are used.

 

to gran pikay hoqsa hyun.

The big and red dog.

 

to gran pikaw hoqsa hyun.

The either big or red or both dog.

 

to gran pifio hoqsa hyun.

The big, if and only if red, dog.

 

to gran pidali hoqsa hyun.

The big, whether red or not, dog.

 

to gran pibukaw hoqsa hyun.

The big, only if red, dog.

 

to gran pyujabu hoqsa hyun.

The big, if red, dog.

 

Those are the hard-core logical connectives.

Now, for normal colloquial speech, we have two other “ifs”:

 

ha – this is from Hungarian, and it means what we usually mean by “if," that is, "contingent on":

 

ha zi komfel, go don komxto ko zi. – If you are hungry, I will give food to you.

ha to hyun sta cu, to felin bu danja. – If the dog is there, the cat will not enter.

 

bwi – from Russian, this is the counterfactual “if,” and is used in cases where many languages use the subjunctive:

 

bwi zi komfel, go don komxto ko zi. – If you were hungry (and you’re not), I’d give food to you.

bwi to hyun sta cu, to felin bu danja. – If the dog were there, the cat would not enter.

 

You can think of ha as meaning “In the possible word that…” and regard it as a modifier of the other clause. Similarly, you can think of fi as meaning “In the alternate world (not this one) that…”, and regard that, too, as a modifier of the other clause.

 

 

Go on to Lesson 4

 

Return to Lesson 2

 

Return to FrontPage

 

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