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Date:         Fri, 17 Dec 1993 16:59:26 GMT
Reply-To: Colin Fine <C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Colin Fine <C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK>
Subject:      le mi'o matlygai
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: RO
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X-From-Space-Date: Fri Dec 17 16:59:26 1993
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+++++++>
       i le mi'o matlygai

Now, I gloss  "matlygai"  as  "linen+cover"  which must be something like
"sheet",  and it's a brivla.  I also translate  "mi'o"  as  "you and me"
which is a sumti, so I get  "mi'o matlygai"  as a selbri made by attaching
"mi'o"  in the x1 place of  "matlygai".  That doesn't exactly make sense
to me.  Not knowing what the x1 place really is, my best guess is that it
is the x1 place of  "cover", but that really doesn't make sense at all.
"you & me"  is not a cover.

Should it be  "i le me mi'o matlygai"  instead ??  This I translate as
"our sheet/cover/whatever", and that makes more sense to me.

Or am I completely wrong?
>++++++++


It's an abominable kludge that has been in the grammar since before
Lojban was invented, for no better reason than that people keep
wanting to use it.

The relevant rules are (in the BNF form):

 sumti-5<96> = (LAhE # | NAhE BO #) [relative-clauses] sumti /LUhU#/ |
        KOhA # | lerfu-string /BOI#/ | LA CMENE ... # |
        (LA | LE) sumti-tail /KU#/ | LI mex /LOhO#/ |
        ZO any-word # | LU text /LIhU/ # | LOhU any-word ... LEhU # |
        ZOI any-word anything any-word #

sumti-tail<111> = [sumti-5 [relative-clauses]] sumti-tail-1 |
        relative-clauses sumti-tail-1

In simple terms these allow

le <sumti> <selbri>

and this is glossed as

le <selbri> pe <sumti>

Thus

le mi'o matlygai

is defined to mean

le matlygai pe mi

More familiar forms are expressions like 'le mi zdani' .
Interestingly, we quite often get things like 'le mi birka' which is equivalent
 to
'le birka pe mi' and so less precise than 'le birka be mi'. I suspect that
 French
lojbanists will be inclined to leave out the possessive in such expressions.

        Colin