From cowan Wed Jul 22 11:15:31 1992 Subject: Re: non-restrictive sumti? To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu (Lojban List) From: John Cowan Date: Wed, 22 Jul 92 11:15:31 EDT In-Reply-To: <9207212006.AA07594@relay1.UU.NET>; from "And Rosta" at Jul 21, 92 9:01 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Status: RO Message-ID: la .and. rost. cusku di'e > Is it possible in Ljb to distinguish restrictive and non-restrictive > sumti? I think the following sentences will do the job, but I do not speak as sub-pope here. :-) Note that in both cases the sumti are essentially abstractions. > E.g. Excreting, whose x1 is an instance of an animal, is prevalent > on London streets. le nu da noi mabru cu vikmi cu cafne vi loi klaji be la lyndn. (the event-of something-1, which-incidentally is-a-mammal, excreting) is frequent near the-mass-of streets at London. > v. Excreting such that its x1 is a dog is prevalent on London streets. le nu da poi gerku cu vikmi cu cafne vi lo klaji be la lyndn. (the event-of something-1 which is-a-dog excreting) is-frequent near the-mass-of streets at London. or more briefly le nu lo gerku cu vikmi cu cafne vi lo klaji be la lyndn. (the event of some dog(s) excreting) is frequent near, etc. > Or, > His love, which he felt only for Sophy, was ardent. The "only" is an extra element here, and one of the most difficult to represent clearly in Lojban. I will therefore translate only the non-restrictiveness rather than the exclusiveness as well. le nu ko'a prami da no'u la sofis. cu carmi (the event-of he-1 loving something-1, which-incidentally-is Sophy) is-intense. > v. His love for Sophy was ardent. le nu ko'a prami la sofis. cu carmi (the event-of he-1 loving Sophy) is-intense > Obviously sumti are normally restrictive but sometimes one might want > to add them nonrestrictively. Since both your examples involve embedded event abstractions, I would be interested in seeing examples which did not involve such. > p.s. My (perhaps widely-welcomed) non-participation in the recent profuse and > recondite discussions on this list is due not to lack of enthusiasm but > rather to a brain hopelessly addled by the loftiness of the intellectual > heights at which the discussions have been taking place. Hello from me > down there on the lowly ground, anyway. The list runs in cycles like that. At the moment, we seem to be in a "deep-structure" phase. At least it's better than the "4th tense" dispute. -- John Cowan cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban.