Message-Id: <199309111850.AA23917@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Sat, 11 Sep 1993 14:47:22 EDT
Reply-To: Jorge LLambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Jorge LLambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: TEXT: The Terrifying Adventure of the Windmills.2
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: RO

la nitcion cusku di'e

> I would have gone for {dimpruxi}, but actually {le dimri'a} (or maybe
> {la dimri'a}) is excellent.

The {la} form is closer to English, but in Spanish we don't use descriptions
as direct names (usually), and the {le} form seems right.


> #> #        i ca'a se cafne le nu le ri so'o birka cu ki'otre li piso'aci
> The reason I asked this is that, to me, this implies that the hands of them
> all often *become* 300 m; the concept you're expressing, that the hands of
> *many* of them are (always) 300 m, doesn't seem to me to be a {cafne} concept,
> though I scarcely know what else it is.

Yes, I see. {cafne} implies some kind of time frequency. I'll change it to:

i ca'a se kampu le ka le ri so'o birka cu ki'otre piso'a li re

> Now that I know what you were saying... Hm. Maybe John would like to do a
> Solomon on this. {rore} is "all 2 of them"; by analogy, {so'are} would be
> "almost all of them, which is 2", rather than "almost all 2 of them";
> the two numerals are taken to be equal.

I'm not sure I follow you. My question is: is {so'are} an integer? I think
it should be, so I can't use it here, for "almost two leagues".

> What you're doing here is expressing
> two distinct numerals, and should really be translated as {so'aboi ci}.
> Not {piso'aci}, which you can bet will be interpreted as {pi so'aci} (and
> was how I interpreted it.)

Initially I had {piso'a li ci}, but Veijo didn't like it. Why is {piso'aci}
read as {pi so'aci} rather than {piso'a ci}? Shouldn't we assume left binding?


> I suppose because of the way I was back-translating into English: "Grr!
> Avoideth not, Un-welcome thou, evil and sinful beast!" Sounds wondrously
> pompous. Ingenious and elegant Lojban, I must add.

Pompous is exactly how Don Q has to sound. (And your English translation
sounds better than the one I have here.)


> #> #        i xu go'i fi le du'u fo'a ca'a bifymlo noi ka'e na'e se djuno
> #> #        le po'o se stedu co vasru be fo'a
> #"... a fact which only one who had other mills of the same sort in his head
> #could fail to see."
> Hm again. Now that I know what you meant, I can't really say the translation
> is wrong, but I would seek to make it less opaque, maybe using {pensi} or
> {se sidbo} for {se stedu co vasru}.

But then it loses all its colour! I'm willing to change the form of the
sentence, but I want to keep the windmills inside his head. I'll try to
think of a more transparent word order.

> Part of the reason is that {po'o} (so
> long resisted by the community --- it's not terribly formal-semantic, after
> all) is still quite unfamiliar to me!

But how else can you say "only"?


> #> #        i ka'u le jamna cuntu ka'e binxo semau ro le drata
> #> {binxo}? "Change" is the concept you're talking about, isn't it?
> #Yes, "the affairs of war are more than any other subject to change."
> In which case the appropriate selbri is surely {cenba}.

y.y. It's hard to tell. The giants supposedly didn't just cenba, but
rather they binxo.  "The affairs of war are more than any other subject
to transformation" sounds strange, but I think this is the meaning here.
Friends turning into enemies, and that sort of thing, rather than the
more mundane friends changing their allegiances.


> #> #        i ca le famfa'o le tolka'erselylacri je palci na snada le nu
> #> #        fapro le mi dakyxa'i vrude
> Now that I think about it, {ca le famfa'o} is doing discursive work, and
> I think it more appropriate that a UI-word do the job. {su'a}?

Very perceptive. I think {pa'e} is the key one. I'll write:

i ba'aju'opa'e le tolka'erselylacri je palci ba na'e snada le nu fapro
  le mi dakyxa'i vrude


> #> #        ba fasnu du'o le cevni
> #> {.i'a}
> #Does {.i'a} mean "amen"? It's a good answer to {ba fasnu du'o le cevni} :)
> > Heh. It actually means that your Sancho utterance doesn't really make
> any sense without the {.i'a} embedded in it, making the bald statement a wish.
> Or whatever it is.

{i'a} means acceptance, and it wouldn't be wrong, but I don't think that is
Sancho's prevailing attitude. In fact, I don't think Sancho wants to make
too explicit his attitude to his friend. Don Quijote says that in the end he
(= good) will prevail. Sancho would respond "yeah, yeah, whatever you say",
but of course, this is totally out of character, he is very respectful
towards his master/friend. He then says, translating back from Lojban,
"events will occur/it will be an event, as is known by God". A very pious
remark, that doesn't contradict what Don Quixote has just said, since for Q.
God is of course on his side, but also doesn't take part in the Quixote's
delirancies. By showing acceptance, Sancho would be actually lying, but he
is honest. I don't want to clutter the statement with anything else. I think
that Sancho's terseness, as compared to his friend's rebombancy, is part of
their characters. (I wouldn't spoil his {ma brabracrida} with attitudinals
either.) A few more attitudinals in Don Quixote's discourse might be an
improvement, though.


co'o mi'e xorxes