Message-Id: <9203051107.AA12606@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu>
Date:         Thu, 5 Mar 1992 21:03:38 +1000
Reply-To: cbmvax!uunet!MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!nsn
Sender: Lojban list <cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!LOJBAN>
From: cbmvax!uunet!MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!nsn
Subject:      mela'ezoiby. MARTenitsa.
To: John Cowan <cowan@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>,
        Eric Raymond <eric@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>,
        Eric Tiedemann <est@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>
Status: RO

I don't know why I enjoy Ivan's lojban text so much. I've arrived at a con-
clusion with respect to his first major piece (coming soon to a JL near you),
though I'm not sure how well the conclusion is founded on the text. :) The
conclusion is that Ivan sounds fresh because he doesn't indulge in the
language-conscious games the rest of us are susceptible to - the "ooh, let's
see what this cmavo does" routine. As I said, I could be wrong. Still, his
refusing my suggestion of using {seke} to convert a whole tanru was to me
revealing.

I guess I'm suggesting Ivan is something of an ingenue in  stylistics - he
does his imitation of natural language, which sounds better than our
translated ins-and-outs. On the other hand, his rational for using {jai}
below doesn't accord with my idealisation of him, does it now. And of course,
a lot is dependent, for this piece, on that he's written an original text,
not bound to an author's/language's convention. John Cowan's diary had the
same advantage, as did Twery's to a lesser extent. But I suspect it's high
time *I* wrote some original text, to try myself out.

All that having been said:

>la cimast. du le pamoi masti pe le vensa noi jaica cikna binxo faile
>mivmunje

The upper world, as we say in Greek. I don't think {mivmunje} will be misunder-
stood (I've already described Hades as mromunje). The {jaica} I myself find
agreeable.

preblgaria. There is a good reason for prenrblgaria: the vocalic r gives away
the split between rafsi classifier and loan stem. This distinction is otherwise
hard to make. Still, it is not policy that you use such a "Cowan-ite" le'avla;
even {blgaria} is theoretically, if not politically, acceptable.

>vo'epedi'u se cmene zoiby. MARtenitsa by. noi zo mart. noi valsi la
>cimast. le banblgaria cu te zbasu

The "polite" way to phrase this so as not to fry the brain (remember, we
don't process in terms of nesting, whatever the TG=UG dreams of foolish and
possibly non-existent people), but linearly. "This is the house that Jack
built" works linearly. Process it with nesting (that is, add arguments to
a clause after terminating an inner clause), and you frazzle readily. As
with the end of this paragraph:) is:

{noi se zbasu fi zo mart. noi valsi la cimast. le bangrblgaria}.

Your phrasing is withing the limits of intelligibility - just. One more level
of nesting, and you're history.

>.i le'i skari pe le remna skapi
>jo'u ciblu cu sinxa fole kazyka'o ki'uledu'u da poi remna cu se flira
>lo dukse beleka blabi .a leka xunre cu cusku ledu'u da bilma

{lenu ledu'u}, of course. Another psycholinguistic no-no I can see already
is two {lenu}s in a row: {lenu lenu broda kei brode} is quite hard. {lenu
ledu'u}, though, is fine. You have used {cusku} in a novel manner. I don't
condemn it at all, it is almost delightful (not quite, because it's still
a plausible usage :).

I do prefer {lego'i} to {vo'apedi'u} still.

>ni'o .a'ocai ro lei lojbo se bangu baze'u kanro

.i a'o lego'i nepa'u do go'i

>co'omi'e .iVAN.

co'o iVAN. i mi ba tavla fi lenu mi co'a ritli tadni le gernylanlyske tozoi
gy. syntaxis gy.toi .i le rolbau gerna to.ubu.gy. bau la glic. toi cu xajmi
.iepei

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>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
>_______________________________________________________________________________