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From: Pierre Abbat <phma@bezitopo.org>
To: lojban-beginners@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [lojban-beginners] How to construct certain sentences
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 21:33:49 -0500
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On Tuesday, November 12, 2013 10:34:18 qx4096@gmail.com wrote:
> I've been trying to teach myself Lojban lately by using Anki for vocabulary
> and by writing for the Lojban Wikipedia to practice writing in the
> language. However, there are a few things I'm having trouble figuring out
> how to say in Lojban.
> 
> I've been translating {Nazi soldiers} as {lo natziz. zei sonci}. What I
> probably want is to use a cmene as a tanru unit, but the definition of
> {zei} says that it is a lujvo glue. In addition, using {lo} before a cmene
> is probably not allowed so I started using {la}, but it seems like {lo}
> would make more sense, because I'm talking about those who are Nazi
> soldiers, not those named "Nazi soldiers". (I've been writing about a book
> which is about a family that helps a Jewish family escape from Denmark
> during World War II, which is why I am making reference to Nazis.)

You could say "me lo .natsis. sonci", but I'd make a fu'ivla for "Nazi". 
("natziz" violates phonotactics.)

> How do I allow an "and" construction with three arguments to be in a
> relative clause or abstraction? I wrote {ni'o la pityr.nilsen. noi ge nanmu
> gi ge gunka fi lonu sidju la'o gy. Danish Resistance gy. kei gi bavyspe la
> lis. ku'o vitke lo lanzu be la .anmyris. je cusku lonu cfari fa lonu lo
> dotco cu ga'orga'i ro lo xebro sorcu} which the "and" construction is of
> the form {ge ... gi ge ... gi ...}. It seems like it would be easier to be
> able to say {A & B & C} instead of {A & (B & C)} but the parser I was using
> didn't accept {ge ... gi ... gi ...}.

There's no way to say "A & B & C" without saying which & is done first, but 
since & is associative, it doesn't matter. You can join clauses in 
afterthought with "ije", but inside a relative clause, "i" would end the 
sentence. I'm not sure whether putting the conjoined clauses in "tu'e ... 
tu'u" does anything useful. Or you could say "ge ge ... gi ... gi ...".

> How do I say "later that night"? I tried {bazi lo nitce} but I think that
> might mean "a little bit of time after the night".

"baziku ca le nicte".

> I was under the impression that I could use {ca/pu/ba} with sumti as well
> as selbri. However, the grammar checker that I have doesn't seem to accept
> {lo ca ... } constructions. I tried {.i la mestyr.jo'ansen. jarco fi lo
> natziz. zei sarcu fe lo kacma pixra be lo ca lonu cifnu kei ci tixnu be'o
> noi ge lo cmene cu se ciska fi ke'a gi jarco lodu'u lo kerfa pe la lises.
> simsa lo kerfa pe la .elen. ca lonu la lises. cifnu} but that is
> complicated and could contain other errors, so I tried a simpler one {lo ca
> lo cifnu ku tixnu cu kansa} and it still rejected it. I was trying to
> translate "Mr. Johanses showed the Nazi soldiers the picture of his three
> daughters while they were infants which the names are written on them and
> they show that Lise's hair was similar to Elen's hair when Lise was an
> infant." It appears that the parser will accept {lo ca sumti} when {ca}
> doesn't have a separate sumti attached to it. However, I don't know how to
> translate "the daughters when they were infants" in a way that the parser
> will accept.

"sarcu" means "necessary". You mean "sonci". Also I'm pretty sure the name 
doesn't have the Lojban "j" sound and should be "io'ansen" or "io'ansyn".

Try "lo kacmyxra be lo ci tixnu be ra be'o bei ca lo nu ri cifnu".

> How do I translate "someday"? I simply wrote {bazuku} which means "far in
> the future".

What's the context? It may be "ca lo bavdza" or "ca lo rodbo'e" or something 
like that.

> In addition to several sentence contructions that I had trouble with, I
> also could not translate several words, like "research", "risk", "star"
> (the shape). I have found that the introductory section of
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_the_Stars is very difficult for me to
> translate.

research: Need context, but perhaps "facysisku".
risk: maybe "nilckape" or "kamckape".
star: Not sure at all.

Pierre
-- 
Jews use a lunisolar calendar; Muslims use a solely lunar calendar.

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