From lojbab@lojban.org Sat Aug 26 11:32:21 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 14767 invoked from network); 26 Aug 2000 18:32:20 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by m3.onelist.org with QMQP; 26 Aug 2000 18:32:20 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO stmpy-3.cais.net) (205.252.14.73) by mta3 with SMTP; 26 Aug 2000 18:32:20 -0000 Received: from bob (ppp5.net-A.cais.net [205.252.61.5]) by stmpy-3.cais.net (8.10.1/8.9.3) with ESMTP id e7QIWIQ85738 for ; Sat, 26 Aug 2000 14:32:18 -0400 (EDT) (envelope-from lojbab@lojban.org) Message-Id: <4.2.2.20000826141909.00acc150@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: vir1036/pop.cais.com@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.2.2 Date: Sat, 26 Aug 2000 14:29:59 -0400 To: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] typos??? In-Reply-To: <8o90vd+tl8u@eGroups.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" At 06:06 PM 08/26/2000 +0000, Alfred W. Tueting (Tüting) wrote: >Studying the "Red Book", every now and then I'm stumbling over pieces >of text that don't go together with my (still fragile!) >knowledge of Lojban, so I do not know whether I didn't really grasp >the issue discussed there (sometimes maybe due to the >ambiguity of the Master's language ;) - like with the /zi'o/ >"problem"*) or there has occurred a misleading typo: > >On page 160: >10.1) mi catlu lo mlatu poi (zo'e) zbasu ke'a lei slasi (the brackets >are *square* brackets) >If this were right (with the /zo'e/ infact elidable!), it translates >"I look at the cat that makes (made) itself from plastic"(!) So my >guess is that the brackets should be removed, right? Remember that zo'e is filled with some value that is obvious from context OR not important enough to specify. In this case, because "ke'a" refers to "lo mlatu" and is just as short as "zo'e", the fact that "zo'e" is not used means that zo'e probably does NOT refer to the cat, but rather to some unspecified/unimportant x1 of zbasu. Thus the better translation is "I look at the cat which (someone) made it from plastic" or more idiomatically "I look at the cat (which is) made of plastic". The zo'e is not grammatically required - like other bridi, the assumption when the place before zbasu in the relative clause is omitted is that it has the value of zo'e. Now the Book also probably says that the normal value for that "zo'e" in x1 (whether elided or not) can be assumed to be "ke'a", but it should also say that if "ke'a" is used elsewhere in the relative clause, then this assumption does not necessarily remain true (and in fact is probably false). Not having the Book in hand, I cannot check to see if this is the case. lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org