From rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org Fri Apr 25 12:45:44 2003 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Fri, 25 Apr 2003 12:45:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: from rlpowell by digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.12) id 19998i-0008Q6-00 for lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Fri, 25 Apr 2003 12:45:44 -0700 Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 12:45:44 -0700 To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: A Newbie's First Impressions Message-ID: <20030425194544.GH29118@digitalkingdom.org> References: <20030424050102.GV5687@miranda.org> <20030424214955.61056.qmail@web10904.mail.yahoo.com> <20030424222322.GS28930@digitalkingdom.org> <20030425194057.GA9794@swbell.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20030425194057.GA9794@swbell.net> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.4i From: Robin Lee Powell X-archive-position: 256 X-Approved-By: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.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: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-list: lojban-beginners On Fri, Apr 25, 2003 at 02:40:57PM -0500, xavin@xavin.adhockery.net wrote: > On Thu, Apr 24, 2003 at 03:23:22PM -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote: > > On Thu, Apr 24, 2003 at 02:49:55PM -0700, Jon MacLeod wrote: > > > > > There are perfectly valid sentences in English which can > > > > > confuse native English speakers (wish I could come up with > > > > > an example). > > > > > > > > The mouse the cat the dog bit chased died. > > > > > > Out of pure masochistic curiousity, what the **** does that > > > sentence mean? > > > > The mouse which was chased by the cat which was bit by the dog > > died. > > Where did you get the rule that says you can do that? *Rule*? Perhaps your talking about a different English. *My* English doesn't have the rules written down anywhere. However, note that this is just a more extreme case of "The car the old man had was blue". Verbal cadence makes a huge difference in cases like this. -Robin -- http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** I'm a *male* Robin. .i le pamoi velru'e zo'u crepu le plibu taxfu .i le remoi velru'e zo'u mo .i le cimoi velru'e zo'u ba'e prali .uisai http://www.lojban.org/ *** to sa'a cu'u lei pibyta'u cridrnoma toi