From lojbab Sat Aug 17 23:06:39 1991 Return-Path: Message-Id: Date: Sat, 17 Aug 91 23:06 EDT From: lojbab (Bob LeChevalier) To: conlang@buphy.bu.edu, lojban-list Subject: a challenge Status: RO lojban-list: Now HERE is a translation challenge and a real test of Lojban's tense system or something. Can anyone figure out how to do this in any way in Lojban? (I won't claim to know the answer on this one.) Remember that there are metaphors here that are really tricky - you'll have to think about how we do the same thing in English, and then how - if we do - we avoid the metaphorical use in Lojban. Extra credit if the tense metaphors really look like tenses in the result, but are different from the standard tense system. I suspect its within the power of the language. conlang: Same challenge for any of your other languages. Has anyone worked with a tense system drastically different from that of English? I'd especially like to see if the "archaic form of Lojban" %^) could handle it. lojbab --------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 14 Aug 1991 15:03:50 +0800 (SST) From: A_DENCH@FENNEL.CC.UWA.OZ.AU Subject: The Bladder Slugs of Yik The Bladder Slugs of Yik. For the general entertainment of all you Metaphor fans out there, I am posting a first year undergraduate assignment which I conceived (maybe in a drug-crazed state but more likely commuting) some three years ago. Sadly it is often the only thing introductory linguistics students remember from their year of Linguistics 100. Should any of you be inclined to use this yourselves, be my guest. The assignment follows lectures on temporal metaphor for which the following sources provided the main inspiration and examples: Foley, W. (1980) "Functional grammar and cultural anthropology" Canberra Anthropology, 3:67-85. Geertz, C. (1975) "Person, time and conduct in Bali". in "The Interpretation of Cultures" London: Hutchinson. pp 360-411. Klein, H. (1987) "The future precedes the past: time in Toba" Word 38:173-185. Lakoff, G. & M. Johnson (1980) "Metaphors we live by" University of Chicago Press. (surprise, surprise). And I think my inspiration for the Bladder Slugs themselves was most likely James Tiptree's sci-fi novel "Up the Walls of the World", which I read years ago somewhere but have never seen since. Read on and have fun! Alan Dench Department of Anthropology University of Western Australia Nedlands, WA 6009 A_DENCH@fennel.cc.uwa.oz.au _____________________________ University of Western Australia Department of Anthropology Linguistics 100 (UWA) Tutorial Assignment: Temporal Metaphors You are Chief Linguist aboard the starship Benjamin Lee Whorf orbiting the gaseous giant Arcturus IV. Your most pressing task is to compile an analysis of the temporal system of the Yik language of the freefalling Bladder Slugs. Given the following translations from Yik, what metaphor(s) seem to prevail in the Yik temporal system? Feel free to draw diagrams and offer explanations. a. I perceived a large glabbage upperday. b. The time for implosion is just below us. c. The pressure increases, the light is dimming, I'm plummeting old. d. How deep until we fall on dense times. e. Three days above I consumed a large splodj. f. In the rarified days of my youth, I set my life on a helical path. g. The foolish Yik lives like a falling space rock. h. At darkest bottom, we all meet at the centre. i. The aliens, who live for eternity high above the days of our youth, believe the universe is expanding. But according to the great physicist Alblort Einslug, it is merely moving up into its own "past". j. All lives converge. At impact we will share our common destiny. k. I hope our bladderlings will rise into the upper reaches of the brightest past. l. I believe the shadows of our downtime bladderlings fell across us upperday. __________________ Good luck. See you lower. ---- lojbab = Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 lojbab@snark.thyrsus.com For information about Lojban, please provide a snail-post address to me via mail or phone. We are funded solely by contributions, which are encouraged for the purpose of defraying our costs, but are not mandatory.