Message-Id: <9202281530.AA22779@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Date:         Fri, 28 Feb 1992 10:26:44 -0500
Reply-To: "Mark E. Shoulson" <cbmvax!uunet!CTR.COLUMBIA.EDU!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!shoulson>
Sender: Lojban list <cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!LOJBAN>
From: "Mark E. Shoulson" <cbmvax!uunet!CTR.COLUMBIA.EDU!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!shoulson>
Subject:      Wallops #7
To: John Cowan <cowan@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>,
        Eric Raymond <eric@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>,
        Eric Tiedemann <est@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>
In-Reply-To:  nsn%MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu's message of Sun,
              23 Feb 1992 21:30:18 +1100
Status: RO

I'm not going to go over the details so nicely as Colin, but I have a few
nitpicky points.

>la men. lu .i roda rode zo'u da na ka'e cpacu de le na ponse be de li'u

I like this usage of careful logic for the idiom.  I think it makes the
point well.

>la men. lu .i.aiku'i mi darxi do lemi grana gi'eja'ebo fedgau ledo besyvau
>li'u

As Colin said, this seems overly long-winded.

>la men. lu .i mu'i la'edi'u ko stagau le greblo gi'e denpa .iku'i da poi na se
>ponse mi cuka'e se lebna do tai ma.ianai li'u

Does this {gi'e} imply a temporal sequence?  You mean to say that Charon
should beach the ferry and *then* wait (not before).  Does the {gi'e} have
this meaning?  If not, is its time-sense sufficiently ambiguous to allow
you to use it as if it did?  Otherwise you'll need to use {ce'o} or
something and {be} the ferry into {stagau}.

>la xar. lu .ixu do punai djuno ledu'u bevri.ei le fepni li'u

Good use of {.ei}.  Many complex sentences could be simplified by proper
use of UIs.  I remember a very very short discussion of the same point in
my book on Langue Bleue, which has 4 or so words like UIs.  Now if only I
could learn to follow that advice myself...

>la xar. lu .ixu do caba ropamei jgici'i lenu mo'ifa'avi ba'o na'e pleji litru
>li'u

I know you like {ropamei}, Nick, but I'm less sure of it.  Here it looks
okay, but I think you blew it later on.  I'll get to those.

>la xar. lu .i la'edi'u to'e vajni le greblopre .i do bilga lenu pleji le fepni
>.i lenu na go'i na se curmi li'u

{to'e vajni} seems to strong to me (I'd have gone with {na'e} or even
{no'e}), but that's a matter of taste and style, and besides, you have the
original in front if you and I don't.

>la men. lu .i loi dembrlupino. do'a kujo'u le sanmi pe la xekates. tosa'a
>xamoi pinka toi li'u

What had he in his bag?  *All* the lupines in the world?  Even a fairly
large sampling of them, a representative on behalf of all of them?  No!  He
had a few of them.  Some subset of the whole mass, not acting for the whole
at all.  He had {lo dembrlupino}, or maybe {lei dembrlupino}.  Hmmm.  Maybe
I shouldn't have been so forceful just now.  I was acting on the
translation and thinking you were being highbrow and Hecate ate wolves, so
he had a couple of them.  Now that I look up the {demb-} rafsi, I see that
you mean the *beans*.  Somehow it seems better to me to use {loi} now, and
I don't know why.  My reasoning is just as sound, what does it matter that
you have more beans than I thought you had wolves?  Maybe because the beans
are considered more of a mixed mass than the wolves?  Still, {lei} looks
better, since it's a particular mass.

>la xar. lu .i do benji doi xermes. levi gekpre tosa'a zemoi pinka toi fo
>ma

He's not really asking this question to get the answer, but to complain.
It's close enough to a real question that I don't see a need for a {paunai}
anywhere, but an {.oi} or something wouldn't go amiss.

>la xar. lu .i.e'unai ca lenu mi krecpa do; li'u

Some indication of the trailing-off threat that the English has would be
nice.

>pamai la xaron cu greblopre vi la xades. noi mromunje ku'o gi'e gregau le
>pruxi be lo morsi la .axeron. noi rirxe .i la xaron se pirskicu fo le to'e
>citno poi rigni je to'e xendo .i pamoi kurji lenu cpedu le fepni poi ro se
>marce cu.ei pleji .i ro na'e pleji cu se renro fi lo bartu

Excellent use of {.ei} in penultimate sentence.  You could have gotten away
with {loi morsi} or {lo'e} morsi in the first, since he does, in fact,
service all the dead.  {lo'e} would be better, since he doesn't service
them in a mass.  But {lo} is fine, for the same reason.

>.i la xermes. cevni fi lepa'anu benji loi morsi la xades.

Why {lepa'anu}?  In addition to what?

>.icimai la MEnipos. ce la antistenes. ce la di'ogenes. ce la krates. noi
>tadnrfilosofo le'a la kinik. cu paromei lei na klaku bevi la mromunje gi'e
>roroi cmila je ckasu

*Here's* a not-so-hot usage of {paromei}.  {paromei} means something like
"all one of..."  But here, these four philosophers are *not* all one of
those who didn't weep.  They're all *four* of those who didn't weep.  This
is, granted, arguable, since you can say the *set* is singular, but I still
think that you'd do better with just {romei}.  You could also have done
{romei} earlier on, and sometimes sounded better.

>.ivomai la .ai,aKOS. cu pamei lei pajni be loi morsi beivi la xades. i role
>drata pajni du la minos. ce la raDAmantis. neve'a la kretes. i la .ai,aKOS.
>cu jbena vi la AIginas. gi'e se sinma la pluton. noi lacri ri lenu ponse le
>ckiku be la xades.

Nitpick:  {role drata pajni du la minos li'osa'a} does *not* mean "all the
other judges are Minos & co...".  It means "all the other-judging
equal-ones, Minos &c...".  {drata pajni du} is a *tanru*.  This will slide
clean through the parser, but mean the wrong thing.  You need a {cu} (or a
{ku}) before the {du}.

Well, that covers things for now.  Have fun.

~mark