View source for quotes without a speaker specified


[[The Book|The Book]] shows ''sei'' being used in conjunction with ''lu...li'u'', not instead of it. This is good, because otherwise, after a sentence marked with ''[[sei|sei]]'', how can you tell whether the next sentence is narration or a continuation of their utterance?

So, a quote '''with''' a speaker specified should be ''lu...sei...li'u'', and a quote without a speaker would be that without the ''sei'' - in other words, simply quoted text. The result is a bare sumti in the sentence, perhaps observing the existence of that quote.

(If instead you choose to not put dialogue in quotes - as in the script to a play - then I assume unmarked sentences would belong to the most recently named speaker, and narration (or stage directions) would be in ''to'i...toi''.)

[[rab.spir|rab.spir]]

* That's exactly what I did towards the end of the lessons. In fact, I went one further, I think: .i la djiotis lu coi li'u . Two disconnected sumti. Because you know very well how they are connected already. -- [[User:Nick Nicholas|nitcion]].

(I disagree. ''sei'' in itself is merely metadiscourse--

whether or not the speaker changes, is not specified. If

a new sentence begins, it is of course a continuation of

the previous discourse, unless explicitly changed by ''ni'o''.

This convention for a ''draci se ciska'' is not the only

one, of course, but it is workable and not un-''lobykai''.

However, I have to address a mere importation of the conventional

drama text conventions, which utilize italics and line spaces

to convey metadiscourse information. In Lojban, such things

'''ought to be made explicit'''. An empty line is not a unit of

information in Lojban. Italics are explicit and refer only to

a change in typeface. I realize that any other method will

seem clunky and unnatural, but that's just how it is. The

drama is not a literary form native to Lojbanistan.)

So how is this disagreeing? What's not explicit about ''to'i...toi''?

Or if you're referring to the ''lu...sei...li'u'' form of quotes, a new sentence would certainly continue the discourse because it would still be inside the ''lu...li'u''! But what I'm saying is that if a bare quote with no ''sei'' occurs, the speaker is ''zo'e'' and (as in English text) is most likely the person who spoke the utterance before last.

* We already know tense conventions are different in narratives and discussion for Lojban ("story time"). I have no problem with a specific convention arising for Lojban drama, whereby the speaker of bare quotes is assumed to alternate. This is different to normal Lojban talk; but chained quotes as dramatic text is not normal Lojban talk. -- [[User:Nick Nicholas|nitcion]]