From cbmvax!uunet!cuvmb.bitnet!LOJBAN Fri Aug 14 14:12:15 1992 Return-Path: Date: Fri Aug 14 14:12:15 1992 Message-Id: <9208141559.AA15482@relay1.UU.NET> Reply-To: cbmvax!uunet!mullian.ee.mu.oz.au!nsn Sender: Lojban list From: cbmvax!uunet!mullian.ee.mu.oz.au!nsn Subject: Re: la bradfrd jbogirz X-To: Dryad , lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 13 Aug 92 19:44:08 -0400." Status: RO fi'i drai,ad. mi gleki lenu do cfari lenu cilre loi lojbo .i xu do jikydjuno fi la silvian. RUtiser. noi mrilu se judri le la MEriland. balcu'e >Am i right in reading "le mi selci'a" as "my text"? "mi" here serves as a >possessive? Yes. A construct built explicitly to model that English construction. Any sumti can be put in that position, but {ku} is usually necessary to keep things together. Thus: {le le noltru gerku} would get parsed as {le (le noltru gerku KU) KU)} = The King Dog's [blank]; {le le noltru ku gerku} = {le (le noltru KU) gerku KU} = The King's Dog. The possessive is the most imprecise one: {pe}: {le mi selci'a} = {le selci'a pe mi} >Why does it start with "coi la tcidu"... tcidu is a gismu, right? Does "la" >put tcidu into the "vocative case"? {la} is not compulsory --- any gismu or cmene after {coi} --- or something of the same grammatical category, like {fi'i} above --- is vocative. The {la} is optional, and to my knowledge, entails no meaning change. >What exactly does "bo" do? Extract the x1 of the previous sentence? {bo} has various functions, none of which are that one. In the text you saw, {bo} stops the "preposition" preceding it from swallowing the "noun" following it. Thus {.i ba le gerku cu cliva} would mean "After [the event of] the dog, [someone] leaves" - which is not good Lojban, since "you leave after the dog" gets translated as "you leave after the dog does" - whereas {.i babo le gerku cu cliva} makes the whole sentence hang off the previous one, linked by the preposition {ba}: "Afterwards/ After what happened in the previous sentence, the dog leaves" >What does he mean by "skami nelci"? ("mi skami nelci") computer-likes --- an ambiguous way of saying "likes computers" >Doesn't "tarmi naldikni" mean something like "shaped disorder"? Or does it >mean "disordered shape" (seemingly a more appropriate description of a fan)? {le naldikni} is SOMETHING disordered (the x1 of the selbri {naldikni}); disorder would be {le ka naldikni}. Thus {tarmi naldikni} means "shape disordered-thing" -- something which is a disordered thing as far as shape is concerned --- which is close enough to "disordered chape". >Finally... how does the last sentence ("ri jo'u gi snuji lei sovda joi tamca >le burna'a gi le ckafi") work? Is "snuji" the selbri here? Why is "gi" >in front of the selbri and in front of a sumti? How does this work? That {le} shouldn't be there; {jo'u gi... gi} joins two selbri, or two sumti (but JOI + GI in forethought is grammar-to-come, not current grammar); of {ri} it can be said that it is {snuji lei sovda joi tamca le burna'a} IN-COMMON-WITH {ckafi} >Thank you for your patience... *shrug* It's been nice :) I was out of practice in this sorta thing... --- 'Dera me xhama t"e larm"e, T Nick Nicholas, EE & CS, Melbourne Uni Dera mbas blerimit | nsn@munagin.ee.mu.oz.au (IRC: Nicxjo) Me xhama t"e larm"e! | Milaw ki ellhnika/Esperanto parolata/ Lumtunia nuk ka ngjyra tjera.' | mi ka'e tavla bau la lojban. je'uru'e - Martin Camaj, _Nj"e Shp'i e Vetme_ | *d'oh!*