From iad@math.bas.bg Thu Feb 3 01:07:42 2000
X-Digest-Num: 352
Message-ID: <44114.352.1900.959273825@eGroups.com>
Date: Thu, 03 Feb 2000 11:07:42 +0200
From: Ivan A Derzhanski <iad@math.bas.bg>
Subject: Re: 3 loafs

sklyanin@pdmi.ras.ru wrote:
> This is my first translation exercise. It is a fable
> "Tri kalacha i odna baranka" (Three loa[ve]s and one bagel)
[...]
> The Lojban translation:
> 
> [1] lo pa nanmu cu xagji
> [2] .i te vecnu lo pa barda bliku be lo nanba gi'e citka
> [3] .i ku'i ca'o xagji

I'd abbreviate {lo pa} to either just {lo} or just {pa}.
{ca'o xagji} `he is continuously hungry': doesn't {co'unai}
get the point across better?

> [4] .i te vecnu lo remoi bliku gi'e citka
> [5] .i ku'i ca'o xagji
> [6] .i te vecnu lo cimoi bliku gi'e citka
> [7] .i ku'i ca'o xagji

How do we say `one more' (English `another one') in Lojban?

> [8] .i baku te vecnu loi cmalu djine nanba
> .ije ba le nu citka lo pa djine kei co'u xagji
> [9] .i baku le nanmu cu darxi le stedu le xance gi'e cusku lu

[9] doesn't really need a connective, but if you want one,
I think I'd make it causal rather than temporal.

> [10] .oi mi bebna

Better make the whole thing a complex attitudinal.
The chap isn't really complaining, he's expressing
annoyance/frustration of an intellectual sort (the
{ro'V} series).

> [11] .i .uinai mi pu fesygau le ba'e so'i nanba ki'u ma

A rhetorical question in the original. It may not be a
good idea to phrase it as a question in the translation.
All he's doing is state that he's eaten (too) many loaves
in vain.

> [12] .i .ei mi pu gasnu le nu le pa cmalu djine
> cu pamoi le'i se citka be mi li'u

I don't quite see why you make him say that he did {gasnu} that.
It's those modalities again. The original goes `I should (just)
have eaten a bagel straight away', which amounts to `In a world
where I act (or things in general go) in the best possible way,
which is a world different from the actual one, I ate(*) a bagel
as soon as I was hungry'.

(*) Past time, different axis. The form is awkward in English,
but we're talking meta-English here.

-- 
<'al-_haylu wa-al-laylu wa-al-baydA'u ta`rifunI
wa-as-sayfu wa-ar-rum.hu wa-al-qir.tAsu wa-al-qalamu>
(Abu t-Tayyib Ahmad Ibn Hussayn al-Mutanabbi)
Ivan A Derzhanski <http://www.math.bas.bg/~iad/>
H: cplx Iztok bl 91, 1113 Sofia, Bulgaria <iad@math.bas.bg>
W: Dept for Math Lx, Inst for Maths & CompSci, Bulg Acad of Sciences