From: cbmvax!uunet!mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU!nsn
Message-Id: <9104180003.26146@mullian.ee.mu.OZ.AU>
To: rs0@beach.cis.ufl.edu, lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com
Cc: nsn@mullian.ee.mu.oz.au
Subject: Your first sentence
Organisation: Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Melbourne
Smiley-Convention: %^)
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 91 10:02:59 +1000
Status: RO


>     "dei mi pamoi jufra fi la lojban"

Well, close, but... {mi} is always a sumti and never a selbri, right? Now in
tanru, you can smash together selbris, and if needed stick a LE word in front
and call it a sumti. you can also stick a mi next to the LE word. So
lemi pamoi jufra befila lojban.
(my first sentence in lojban)
is fine. But here, {pamoi jufra} is a selbri, and {mi} is not considered a 
part of the tanru, but a sumti in itself. What you've said is that {mi} is the
second argument of {jufra} - I forget the place structure of {jufra}, but
you didn't intend that.

So what to do? You can say 'my' but not 'is my'. Hm. Some suggestions:
dei du lemi pamoi jufra befila lojban. (wimpy way out)
dei me lemi pamoi jufra befila lojban. (slightly less wimpy)
dei pamoi jufra fi la lojban. ci'a mi (the semantics of which is very iffy)
dei pamoi finti befa mi be'o jufra fi la lojban. (complex tanru)

What I'd really like to have is: the first sentence such that I write it.
But NOI only goes after sumtis, not after selbris. How do you qualify
selbris by something analogous? Hullo, la djan. kau,n ?

Still, you're doing well. Lojban is a nontrivial language. Keep up the
unproductve fun!

ki'eco'omi'e nitcion.