From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Tue Aug 16 13:31:07 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:34:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.52) id 1E585S-0002Xi-Qo for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:31:06 -0700 Received: from zproxy.gmail.com ([64.233.162.196]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1E585O-0002XJ-2w for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:31:06 -0700 Received: by zproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id x7so21155nzc for ; Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:30:59 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=WvaxUxwtg/tAczKeUloF6FCXMmgODmJ+bskHsLdJ2tOICRuNg31In5jzlCFse8WCVYZuQc/TfjrK+fPs8El7/fQY7et/jS2rRf2lOtD8SGsScUibyeaVABNYqU2xpvo9vM4iF9ABAgQW2RV7JgfCWijyUdVidljQMyd+wXOjTTY= Received: by 10.36.60.17 with SMTP id i17mr5609092nza; Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:30:59 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.36.67.6 with HTTP; Tue, 16 Aug 2005 13:30:59 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <737b61f30508161330357053be@mail.gmail.com> Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 15:30:59 -0500 From: Chris Capel To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] alice questions In-Reply-To: <737b61f30508141443b15fcc7@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Disposition: inline References: <737b61f30508141443b15fcc7@mail.gmail.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) X-archive-position: 1741 X-Approved-By: jkominek@miranda.org X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-original-sender: pdf23ds@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-list: lojban-beginners Hi, I've been studying the translation of Alice in Wonderland the past few days as a way to learn vocabulary that I can immediately see used in context (and an entertaining one, at that). I take it a bridi at a time and try to decipher the meaning as well as I can, adding all the unfamiliar words into Supermemo (.oicu'i ku'i na spofu), and looking up some cmavo in CLL until I understand the bridi completely. I've come across a couple of points (after {ji'i}) that are more likely me being stupid than otherwise, and so I guess this is the list for them. I'll probably be bugging {ro do} in the future. First, {bo}. When you see the sequence {i PU bo}, does that mean that bo is grouping the two bridi together, using the sense of the PU cmavo used? {i abu ca'o menli jdice [...] le du'u xukau le nu pluka fa le nu zbasu lo xrula linsi cu se vamji le raktu poi nu sa'irbi'o gi'e crepu loi xrula .i ca bo suksa fa le nu lo blabi ractu poi xunblabi se kanla cu bajra zo'a abu} When I first saw it, I though bo was just used in tanru. But even when it's not used in tanru, it seems like it ought to be more than just a simple terminator. It makes sense that it would tie the two bridi together, allowing the tense cmavo to modify the relationship of the bridi. So is this an accurate way to look at it? Second, {lo blabi ractu poi xunblabi se kanla}. Why doesn't this mean "a white rabbit with a pink body"? {se kanla} is the body that holds the eyes, right? So {xunblabi se kanla} means "pink [type-of] being body(ies) with eyes" or something, not anything close to "having pink eyes". Oh, and why the {poi}? Oughtn't it be {lo blabi ractu noi kanla noi xunblabi}? It seems like non-restrictive ought to be the default, being less error-prone, and it doesn't seem that {poi} is required here. Third. In {i la'e di'u no'e ba'e mutce le ka cizra}, what kind of cadence might that be spoken with? Is stress usually put on {ba'e}, or on the next word? And in {leka} and {lenu}, is stress usually put on the first or second cmavo? I realize that there's probably no consensus on this, as no standard for the spoken language has really coalesced from usage, there being little vocal usage between geographically separated speakers. And in three-syllable lujvo where the penultimate is "y", like {sezysku}, is the stress on the penultimate or the ... um ... third-to-last? (antepenultimate? penulpenultimate? anteanteultimate?) One more thing. Are many of the {le} used in Alice better changed to {lo} after xorlo? I've actually gotten further than this mail might indicate (by a couple paragraphs even!), but I'm coming back to ask some stuff, and I'm learning all the places of every gismu I come across as I go, so maybe I'll speed up a little by chapter three or so. :-) Chris Capel -- "What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to bat a bee? What is it like to be a bee being batted? What is it like to be a batted bee?" -- The Mind's I (Hofstadter, Dennet)