[lojban-beginners] Re: Greetings, and commands

[Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>]

.uinai .u'u mi puzu na spuda

On Tue, Jan 28, 2003 at 07:20:05PM -0600, Bodeen, Gabe wrote:
> My name is Gabe 

Hi Gabe.

> (.i lu mi'e geib. li'u se cusku mi bau la lojban.) and I'm working
> through Nick's and Robin's lessons in between homework.

Excellent choice.

> The previous, poorly worded sentence 

There isn't a *thing* wrong with it.

> brings me to my first question.  How is best to indicate possession by
> multiple people, or multiple sumti?

I don't see the relationship between your sentence and your question,
but OK.

> "le mensi joi bruna ku pe me" is my guess.

That's one way, but it's a bad way, even assuming that you meant 'mi'
and not 'me' (took me months to stop doing that; now I say 'mi' in
English mails 8).  It means the thing that is a mix of being a brother
and a sister associated with me.

You want:

le mensi ku joi le bruna vu'o pe mi

At least, I think that's correct.

> Also, I'm curious about commands.  I assume it's acceptable to add a
> number to commands:
>  
> .i reko klama vi
> 
>  to make it more obvious whom the commands are addressed to.

Sure.

> What are the recommended ways to express 1st- and 3rd-person commands?
> I liked the idea of adding a word to a sentence to make it into a
> command, in the same way that 'xu' makes a sentence a question.  Can
> Lojban do that, too?

I'm not sure I understand the question.  Can you give English examples
of the kinds of commands you'd like to construct?

In general, though, you can do the xu-style command using attitudinals;
ga'i, .e'idai, .eidai, .uenai, ju'i, that sort of thing.  se'inai might
be better than dai, actually.

-Robin

-- 
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