quoting text in another language: Difference between revisions

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The particle '''zoi''' is a quotation mark for quoting non-Lojban text. Its syntax is '''zoi X. text .X.''', where X is a Lojban word (called the delimiting word) which is separated from the quoted text by pauses, and which is not found in the written text or spoken phoneme stream <u>inside that quotation</u>. It is common, but not required, to use the name of some letter, which corresponds to the Lojban name of the language being quoted:
{{mu|zoi gy. John is a man .gy. cu glico jufra|“John is a man” is an English sentence.}}
where '''gy.''' stands for '''glico'''. Other popular choices of delimiting words are '''.kuot.''', a Lojban name which sounds like the English word ''quote'', and the word ''zoi'' itself. Another possibility is a Lojban word suggesting the topic of the quotation.


Of course, {''me''} ''zoisy. ... .sy.'' is still possible, or ''zoi .esperanton. ... .esperanton.'' (if "esperanton" doesn't appear in the text), or ''zoi spero. ... .spero.''
<!--
(A minor note on interaction between “lo'u ... le'u” and “zoi”: The text between “lo'u” and “le'u” should consist of Lojban words only. In fact, non-Lojban material in the form of a “zoi” quotation may also appear. However, if the word “le'u” is used either as the delimiting word for the “zoi” quotation, or within the quotation itself, the outer “lo'u” quotation will be prematurely terminated. Therefore, “le'u” should be avoided as the delimiting word in any “zoi” quotation.)
-->
Lojban strictly avoids any confusion between things and the names of things:
{{mupli|'''zo .bob. cmene la bob.'''<br><code>The-word “Bob” is-the-name-of the-one-named Bob.</code><br>}}
'''zo .bab.''' is the word, whereas '''la bab.''' is the thing named by the word. The particle '''la'e''' and '''lu'e''' convert back and forth between references and their referents:
{{mu|zo .bab. cmene la'e zo .bab.|The-word “Bob” is-the-name-of the-referent-of the-word “Bob”.}}
{{mu|lu'e la bab. cmene la bab.|A-symbol-for Bob is-the-name-of Bob.}}
Last two examples mean the same. But this is different:
{{mu|la bab. cu cmene la bab.|Bob is the name of Bob.}}
and says that Bob is both the name and the thing named, an unlikely situation. People are not names.


But those don't mean the right things: without ''me'', they just refer to those particular Esperanto ''texts''; with ''me'', they say that something is an instance (token) of that particular Esperanto text.
The particle '''la'o''' serves to mark non-Lojban names, for example the Linnaean binomial names (such as "Homo sapiens"), which are the internationally standardized names for species of animals and plants.


''IMHO, the notion of a mechanism '''within''' the grammar of a language for language shifting is a silly one. --[[John Cowan|John Cowan]]''
Internationally known names which can more easily be recognized by spelling rather than pronunciation, such as ''Goethe'', can also appear in Lojban text with '''la'o''':


(It's obvious you never lived in a place where Spanglish occurs...)
{{mu|la'o dy. Goethe .dy. cu me la'o ly. Homo sapiens .ly.|Goethe is a Homo sapiens.}}
Using '''la'o''' for all names rather than Lojbanizing, however, makes for very cumbersome text. A rough equivalent of '''la'o''' might be '''la me zoi'''.


* Spanglish tends to consist of English words forced into the spanish phonology and used in spanish. It is really not a whole lot different than, for instance, using lojban with [[type 4 fu'ivla]] where there is a simple tanru availible. I have not heard much spanglish, but my sense is that it is similar also to what I know of the language in Kazakhstan - last year my family hosted an exchange student from there who said that since everyone spoke fluent Russian and Kazakh, they spoke Kazakh with a LOT of russian words mixed in. Spanglish is NOT a natural language with a shift built into the grammar, it is a pidgin (in the non-demeaning sense of the word), one which it would not surprise me to see one day replacing both English and Spanish in the United States. - mi'e. [[jbocre: .kreig.daniyl.|.kreig.daniyl.]]


** Codeswitching (which is what Esperanto-shift is advocating, if I am making sense of this proposal) is nothing like Kazakh with Russian words. We're talking the equivalent of Kazakh with entire Russian phrases, and no necessary assimilation at all. There are two autonomous linguistic systems being alternated between in code-switching, not a mixture of the two. The real Lojban analogue to code-switching is not the occasional fu'ivla, but entire embedded phrases of English --- things like ''mi djuno ledu'u '''I was going to come over tonight''' gi'e ku'i na ka'e go'i''; and this is advocating using a cmavo to signal this. Right? Because if this was just the occasional fu'ivla, we already have mechanisms for that. -- [[User:Nick Nicholas|nitcion]].
Everything expressed in text should also be expressed in speech and vice versa. Therefore, there cannot be any punctuation which is not pronounced. This means that Lojban has a wide range of words to quote other words. All Lojban convert a text into a noun.


No fair. Natural language codeswitching certainly doesn't use grammar to signal the switch.
'''lu''' ... '''li'u''' quote only text that is grammatically correct. To quote any Lojban text we use '''lo'u''' ... '''le'u''' quote instead.
{{mu|xu lo'u je le'u lojbo sumtcita . i je'unai|Is "je" a preposition? No.}}
{{mu|ma xe fanva zoi gy.What's up?.gy. la .lojban.|How to translate "What's up?" to Lojban?}}
'''zo'oi''' quotes next word only. Next word is identified by pauses in speech or whitespace/dot in writing:
{{mu|ri pu cusku zo'oi Doh! .u'i|Ha ha, he said "Doh!"}}


* Exactly.  If grammatically controlled at all (and I think it is) it's controlled by a metagrammar outside both natlang grammars, with rules like "Don't switch within tightly bound constructs" and "Switch only where the two language grammars are alignable (thus no switch between English preposed adjective and Spanish noun, nor between English noun and postposed Spanish adjective)."
There is also the word '''la'oi''', which forms a one-word name but unlike '''la''' even out of non-Lojban words:
{{mu|la'oi Safi glico nanmu. It's his name.|Safi is an English guy. .i lu'e ri cmene ri}}


(And being himself bilingual, I'm sure John knows full well what codeswitching is.)
The word '''me'oi''' converts next word into a verb even if it's not a Lojban word. It is used to create necessary verb words on the fly or when you forget a Lojban verb:
{{mu|lo xirma ca me'oi gallop|The horse gallops}}


* Who, me bilingual?  Not at all. I decided to learn Lojban many years ago to escape monolingualism -- hasn't exactly worked yet. --[[John Cowan|John Cowan]]
General use of '''zo'oi''', '''la'oi''' and '''me'oi''' is problematic. You should be aware that the word following '''zo'oi''' should not include a period, a glottal stop or a pause. For example, the following sentence is not correct:


If you're speaking grammatically correct, computer-parsed Lojban, you have no need to switch out of Lojban with anything but the generic foreign-language switches anyway. If you're going to ''galfi le bangu poi do pilno ku'o ca'o lenu tavla'', why on earth legitimate it with a novel, explicit grammatical mechanism? Why on earth isn't ''zoi'' at the start of a new utterance enough? What next, a cmavo to signal up-coming coughs? -- [[User:Nick Nicholas|nitcion]].
:'''mi penmi la'oi Mei Li''' is not correct since '''la'oi''' attaches only one word, ''Mei''.


* Given the smoke level here in Manhattan these days, we may need one.  :-)
:'''la'oi uli.uli zgike tutci''' for ''Uli uli is a musical instrument'' is not correct since '''la'oi''' takes only the first word before the dot: "uli" ("`uli`uli" is a Hawaiian musical instrument).
** Smoke level back to normal.


*** Is that any better?
==[[Borrowing from Loglan]]==
* If we don't make such a cmavo, they could be mistaken for a name - adding a sumti (la xux.) in the middle and messing up the whole bridi
 
**I'm not sure a new cmavo would actually be required here. The way to cough grammatically would be:  ''mi klama to'i zoi ke ''<actual cough here>'' ke toi le zarci''  Should it be necessary to disambiguate (in a context where for example the cough might be taken for a sneeze) you can simply add a ''noi mi kafke ke'a'' in the appropriate place.
** .ue vi le jbonai po'o fasnu...
 
* Um, we already have such a cmavo: '''.y.'''  It is known not to be restricted to exactly that sound.
 
----
 
(My point about grammatically signalling codeswitching in Lojban is, we are explicit about everything else metalinguistic, why not this?)

Latest revision as of 07:31, 12 February 2016

The particle zoi is a quotation mark for quoting non-Lojban text. Its syntax is zoi X. text .X., where X is a Lojban word (called the delimiting word) which is separated from the quoted text by pauses, and which is not found in the written text or spoken phoneme stream inside that quotation. It is common, but not required, to use the name of some letter, which corresponds to the Lojban name of the language being quoted:

zoi gy. John is a man .gy. cu glico jufra
“John is a man” is an English sentence.

where gy. stands for glico. Other popular choices of delimiting words are .kuot., a Lojban name which sounds like the English word quote, and the word zoi itself. Another possibility is a Lojban word suggesting the topic of the quotation.

Lojban strictly avoids any confusion between things and the names of things:

zo .bob. cmene la bob.
The-word “Bob” is-the-name-of the-one-named Bob.

zo .bab. is the word, whereas la bab. is the thing named by the word. The particle la'e and lu'e convert back and forth between references and their referents:

zo .bab. cmene la'e zo .bab.
The-word “Bob” is-the-name-of the-referent-of the-word “Bob”.
lu'e la bab. cmene la bab.
A-symbol-for Bob is-the-name-of Bob.

Last two examples mean the same. But this is different:

la bab. cu cmene la bab.
Bob is the name of Bob.

and says that Bob is both the name and the thing named, an unlikely situation. People are not names.

The particle la'o serves to mark non-Lojban names, for example the Linnaean binomial names (such as "Homo sapiens"), which are the internationally standardized names for species of animals and plants.

Internationally known names which can more easily be recognized by spelling rather than pronunciation, such as Goethe, can also appear in Lojban text with la'o:

la'o dy. Goethe .dy. cu me la'o ly. Homo sapiens .ly.
Goethe is a Homo sapiens.

Using la'o for all names rather than Lojbanizing, however, makes for very cumbersome text. A rough equivalent of la'o might be la me zoi.


Everything expressed in text should also be expressed in speech and vice versa. Therefore, there cannot be any punctuation which is not pronounced. This means that Lojban has a wide range of words to quote other words. All Lojban convert a text into a noun.

lu ... li'u quote only text that is grammatically correct. To quote any Lojban text we use lo'u ... le'u quote instead.

xu lo'u je le'u lojbo sumtcita . i je'unai
Is "je" a preposition? No.
ma xe fanva zoi gy.What's up?.gy. la .lojban.
How to translate "What's up?" to Lojban?

zo'oi quotes next word only. Next word is identified by pauses in speech or whitespace/dot in writing:

ri pu cusku zo'oi Doh! .u'i
Ha ha, he said "Doh!"

There is also the word la'oi, which forms a one-word name but unlike la even out of non-Lojban words:

la'oi Safi glico nanmu. It's his name.
Safi is an English guy. .i lu'e ri cmene ri

The word me'oi converts next word into a verb even if it's not a Lojban word. It is used to create necessary verb words on the fly or when you forget a Lojban verb:

lo xirma ca me'oi gallop
The horse gallops

General use of zo'oi, la'oi and me'oi is problematic. You should be aware that the word following zo'oi should not include a period, a glottal stop or a pause. For example, the following sentence is not correct:

mi penmi la'oi Mei Li is not correct since la'oi attaches only one word, Mei.
la'oi uli.uli zgike tutci for Uli uli is a musical instrument is not correct since la'oi takes only the first word before the dot: "uli" ("`uli`uli" is a Hawaiian musical instrument).

Borrowing from Loglan