From: cbmvax!uunet!mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU!nsn
Message-Id: <9104160122.19829@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU>
To: lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com
Cc: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.oz.au
Subject: lojban stylistics
Organisation: Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Melbourne
Smiley-Convention: %^)
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 91 11:22:35 +1000
Status: RO

Well, my fellow lojbanis, it's all very well for some to lack motivation
to actually use lojban (actually no it isn't, it's a disgrace, but that's
just me ranting), but now the language is (sorta) baselined, there are
other, less-logji-and-more-philological questions to face. Like stylistics.
It's odd that lojbab seems bewildered when Michael Helsem (or I) turn out
a non-SVO sentence; I think what's happening here (and in that translation
from my Esperanto lojbab did, which I mailed out here a while back) is
a conflict between two stylistics:

1. Strict sumti order. Advantageous in that mental parsing is straightforward.
When I first saw all them {fa} and {fe} in lojbab's tyranslation, I was
horrified. 'What is this - argument number two, argument number five? Yuck!'

2. Free sumti order. Motivated by two factors:
a. Emphasis. This is sorta what happens in free-order langs like Greek and
Esp, and what lojbab was emulating without asking too many questions (no
flame intended).
b. Conciseness. With good order, you kill off all them nasty terminators
you keep forgetting (get as many of 'em as possible elided out by the {.i})

As a springboard, I post the start of a Greek humour article written in the
laste '60s by Freddy Germanos. I think my grammar is alright, and I've
avoided tanru to keep my semantics nice and simple. Translation added. Use
this as a springboard, if you will, as to where lojban stylistics should
be headed. (I may do an analysis of how Cowan's, LeChevalier's, Ruitser's (sp?)
Athelstan's and Helsem's word-orders diverge later, but I need more time
and text.)

This, btw, is the last text I have written with just the level 1 materials
(got the lessons last night). Yes, it may very well have massive errors,
but that's not the point: look at the wordorders and the terminator elision. 
There's an observative in there I'm a bit proud of.

And lojbanis: get of your arses (oops, I can't say that on a mailing list %^)
and write some lojban.

nuzba ni'oni'o
"News"

le briju cu se so'iroi klama so'olemi pendo poi co'a gunka lemi'a jibri
zi'epoi te preti fo mi feledu'u lo nuzba cu se cusku ta'i ma
"My office is often visited by friends who are just getting started in
our profession, and who ask me how to write news.
(In the original: To the office often come...)

.i lo nuzba .i'a mezo .co'a. je mezo .mo'u. sele'a lo karni finti
News is of course the Alpha and Omega of journalism (in Greek: public-writing)

.iku'i finti pi'o le karni po'u ma ra'u
But what's important is which paper you write it for.

.i role karni cu ckaji leri tadji bele nuncusku belo'i nuzba
Each paper has its own style of writing news.

.i di'u sidju lenu ra se tcidu va'olo filmau .a noda
This results in them being read more easily - or not at all [yes, I know
that's a clumsy place for {noda}]

ni'o mi cipra da'i mu'ulo nuzba poi mutce sampu
Let's examine a very simple news item.

.i lo nixli be limube'o ca lepu'u ke'a pu kelci leke'a bolci kei cu farlu
lo skuro poi le'i gunka pele ta'utru cu kakpa karbai
A girl, aged 5, while playing with her ball, falls into a trench opened
by a Municipal crew.

[And there are five different reports, one upper-class in archaic prose
concentrating on the famous socialites living next door to the trench,
one sensaltionalist speculating on rape, one communist calling for a
class struggle, one anticommunist hinting at Red sabotage, and Germanos'
own paper claiming she fell in because her father did not buy said paper.
Emulating archaic prose by lots of terminators, and populist prose by
systematic use or ra/re/ri, which I don't really like, will be fun.]

co'omi'e nitcion.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nick S. Nicholas,			"Rode like foam on the river of pity
Depts. of CompSci & ElecEng,  		 Turned its tide to strength
University of Melbourne, Australia.	 Healed the hole that ripped in living"
nsn@{mullian.ee|mullauna.cs|ecr}.mu.oz.au     -	S. Vega, Book Of Dreams
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