From cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Thu Sep 5 21:49:40 1991 Return-Path: Date: Thu Sep 5 21:49:40 1991 Message-Id: <9109052355.AA08628@relay1.UU.NET> Reply-To: Lojban list Sender: Lojban list From: cbmvax!uunet!MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU!pucc.PRINCETON.EDU!nsn Subject: Re: Translation To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann , Bob LeChevalier In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 05 Sep 91 10:12:31 EDT." Status: RO I see no problems with Mark's latest but the ones I am about to point out (hint: this means it's Lojbab's and John's turn to nitpick.) Mark: I'd take my hat off if I wore one. >.i le cevni cu selfendri'a fi le (ka?) gusni ce le (ka?) manku >The god be-divide-cause [(something)] into the [quality-of:] illumination >unordered-set-with the [quality-of:] darkness No, the place structure you have is wrong. The 1990 place structure (don't have the '89 list handy) is: x1 (instrument) divides x2 into x3, with x4 and x5 static noise. So {se fendi} has x2 is divided with x1 (instrument) into x3, with x4 and x5 as above. Thus: (the space-time continuum) is divided up with (the Maxwell equations %^) into (dark and light). To introduce {rinka} (and that's {selfedri'a}), you say action (or, elliptically, actor) r1 causes that x2 is divided with x1 into x3. The above should have {fo}. However, since in both cases there is a place in the lujvo for the instrument of division, the distinction between {fedri'a fo le gusni ce lo manku} and {selfedri'a fo li'o} is stylistic. Thus we have {fedri'a}: The god made (something) split up (something) into day & night {selfedri'a}: The god made (something) be split up by (something) into day & night. Hope this pleases you, because I advocate such dikyjvo analysis for all {rinka} compounds; save a hell of a lot of time. Before jimc starts huzzahing, though, I reiterate what I, John Cowan, and, when he understands what Jim is talking about, Lojbab, have been saying: an analysis of all possible lujvo by an unambiguous dikyjvo test is not possible in Lojban. For starters, there is rarely a way of telling between the two major categories of lujvo, the broda be brode type ("transitive", of which the above analysis, "event ab- straction", is a special case) and broda je/joi/poi brode ("parellel"). For seconds, these two types easily proliferate into about a dozen on closer examination: I've posted examples of this earlier, but will repeat that, if you want to say {posydji} (want as in want to own something), you won't say (I) want that (I) should own (this), but (I) wanna-own (this) - so you've elided out the x1 of {ponse} by assuming it equivalent to the x1 of {djica}. Jimc points out that, in official Lojban, the x1 of rinka is an event, so the above "should" have been {tu'a le cevni} ,"the action of the god made...". Though Lojbab says the situation is different in Washington, here in Melbourne I can't see this {tu'a} catching on: context and firmish place structures will elide it out. Mark doubts if {.i pa djedi vau} is grammatical. It is, but it corresponds to {pa lo djedi vau}, which in Lojban *should* have you asking "one day was what?" {pa djedi cu mo}. I would have prefered {djedi pamei}. The only term I can think of for swarm is the rather dry {so'emei} - manysome. Nick.