Message-Id: <9203281520.AA05801@relay1.UU.NET>
Date:         Sun, 29 Mar 1992 01:17:13 +1000
Reply-To: cbmvax!uunet!MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU!nsn
Sender: Lojban list <cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!pucc.Princeton.EDU!LOJBAN>
From: cbmvax!uunet!MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU!nsn
Subject:      Quine text
To: John Cowan <cowan@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>,
        Eric Raymond <eric@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>,
        Eric Tiedemann <est@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>
Status: RO

Colin's latest:

>ra'i le seme'e kalti beloka jetnu ku nefi'e la .uilrd. kuain.

Hmhmhm. {seme'e} to indicate that this is really a cmene? Nice try, but really,
{la} would do the job {seme'e} is doing here better.

>.ira neki'unai le valsi
>kaunai beke'a ge'u co'i simlu leka ckini fa lei nunselga'e tosa'a
>pamoi pinka toi  lei saske tidyci'i

First, the {kaunai} is not strictly speaking necessary; the "whatever" here is
really a {ba'e ro valsi zo'u}. Second, I find this use of the place structure
of {simlu} unnerving. To me, the x2 of simlu is a cleft containing x1, so
{simlu leka te ckini lei nunselga'e lei saske tidyci'i}. (Which doesn't
counter what you had, but you seem to be treating simlu as a copula, which
it ain't.

>.i .eifu'e cu pamoi ledi'u jorne porsi fa lesu'o jufra goi fo'a zi'epoi
>jibni je selbirti ckini lemi nunselga'e

That {cu} shouldn't be there. {cfari} is more helpful than {pamoi}.

>.i rofo'a ckini co gu'e na'e
>dukti be pisu'o loi nunselga'e gu'i je'a dukti be pisu'ori

{cu}, not {co}, and {gi}, not {gu'i}. {dukti}? I'd have chosen {fapro}, or
{to'e mapti}.

>.i fo'a ka'e se spuda file nuntugni .onai le nunto'etugni fele ganse goi ko'a
>fau lenu mapti nunselga'e ku saunai loba sisku ku ki'unai leca
>selgasnu kaunai be ko'a

{loba sisku}? Preferably {lonu ba sisku}. {ki'unai} should be {va'onai}.

>.iva'i fi'o na simsa lo xe skicu belo selci'o ku fo'a ka'e se spuda
>file mintu fero selbanka'e zgana bele fasnu fu'o

{pa'anai} could do the job of your {fi'o na simsa}, which, I fear, makes no
sense in Lojban as a BAI for "unlike". Better, though: {lo xe skicu belo
selci'o na go'o .isi'anai fo'a ka'e se spuda} or some use of {seba'i}. Some
use of {ne} should have been used with your BAI: it's the {fo'a} that's being
{nase simsa}, and you should say so.

>ni'o fo'a nunzgaju'e ca'e mu'u lu carvi vau li'u

The {vau} is no longer essential; it kept showing up in JL because of
limitations in Lojbab's parser.

{lo remna cu morsi} doesn't make me think of "Man is mortal". Go for {loi
remna}, or {ro remna zo'u ri ba morsi}.

>.i go'i
>zu'unai tai lo bridi nemu'u lu levi bidju cu blanu vau li'u goi ko'a

{zu'unai} against {mu'u}? {ji'a}, I'd say. {ta'i} is better than {tai}.

>.ijo su'odapele tcini  su'odeperi zo'u
>du'o le nunselga'e ku le selkanxe .e le terkanxe cu jetnu ra'a da fa'u

The {nunselga'e} is not the {djuno}: {le ganse} xor {tedu'o}. This jufra
is a tad awkward.

>.imu'a le blabi bidju viku jo'u le blanu xrula vaku

Not grammatical. I propose {le vi blabi bidju kujo'u le va blanu xrula}

>ku'i cu ralgau lerejei se jufra gi'e se sarcu lenu ri gumna ja
>badykruca se mansa

{keigi'e}, I think. {mansa} might not be the best word.

>pamai le nunselga'e ca'e be da noi na'o ganse prenu bei de noi na'o
>fasnu be'o cu sa'e porsi befi loka balvi be'o klesa role da batyterzga
>poi ca'a te zgana fida fode

{za'e batyterzga} :). I take it this means you map {xyxipa nunbroda xyxire
xyxici} into {xyxipa nu xyxici broda xyxire}, rather than {xyxire broda xyxici}?
I register my disapproval.

I hereby appoint Colin head honcho stylist: he dismantled a syntactically
convoluted text into relatively straightforward Lojban, something I've been
consistently faulting Lojbab for failing to do, and failing to do myself
recently. I won't claim that all of Colin's text was communicative, but then,
Colin did set himself a lexically hard task. Of course, the opaqueness of
such technical texts could end up the Great Defeat of Lojban. But there's no
reason for such concern for the next couple of years; for this reason, Colin
is still to be congratulated, rather than feared :)
Interesting, how Colin had to go about decomposing the words. That Lojban was
quite a different text from the original, eh wot?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nick Nicholas, Melbourne Uni, Australia.  nsn@{munagin.ee|mundil.cs}.mu.oz.au
"Despite millions of dollars of research, death continues to be this nation's
number one killer"      - Henry Gibson, Kentucky Fried Movie
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