From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Sun Aug 14 04:08:30 1994 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by nfs1.digex.net with SMTP id AA24009 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for ); Sun, 14 Aug 1994 04:08:27 -0400 Message-Id: <199408140808.AA24009@nfs1.digex.net> Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 6269; Sun, 14 Aug 94 04:09:56 EDT Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (NJE origin LISTSERV@UGA) by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 4542; Sun, 14 Aug 1994 04:09:52 -0400 Date: Sun, 14 Aug 1994 11:06:57 +0300 Reply-To: veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI Sender: Lojban list From: Veijo Vilva Subject: Re: Nested preposed relatives (Was: Re: Allnoun) X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Bob LeChevalier Status: RO la xorxes cusku di'e > Date: Sat, 13 Aug 1994 14:01:16 EDT > From: Jorge Llambias > Subject: Re: Nested preposed relatives (Was: Re: Allnoun) > la veion cusku di'e > > In Finnish we would > > use a word order similar to lojbab's tanru in a situation like this where > > the subject and predicate would otherwise be separated by a lot of > > noise. > > It's not just the word order. If you add other information the word order > is not so crucial. The point I was trying to make was, that given a long chain of postposed relative clauses, it is quite easy to loose track of the subject at the head by the time you arrive at the predicate. > > Hiiren pyydystanytta kissaa ajava koira on musta > > le smacu kavbu mlatu jersi gerku cu xekri > > > > The structure in Finnish is readily understandable and generally > > used (with practically NO nesting limit). > > But in Finnish you do have the noun-verb-noun-verb-noun iteration to guide you, > which is not there in a Lojban tanru. (Assuming pyydystanytta and ajava are > verb forms, am I right?) Maybe a five element tanru can be understood, given > that some gismu are more verbish and some are more nounish, but for very > long tanru, I doubt it can be done. I agree. This is just one aspect of the tanru ambiguity. > Just out of curiosity, how would you say in Finnish "The mouse-catching, > cat-chasing dog is black"? Hiiria pyydystava, kissoja ajava koira on musta. (A change here is that in Finnish we have {hiiria/kissoja} in plural unless we have a specific mouse/cat in mind in which case we would have {hiirta/kissaa}. The case+verb form combination indicates that the dog is either in the process of catching/chasing or does the thing customarily. It is also possible to indicate that the act is completed, but the situation is more complex depending on whether the chase/catching just ended or whether it reached a given end state/was successful - the difference is indicated using a different case for the cat/mouse: kissaa ajanut koira the dog that chased the cat kissan puuhun ajanut koira the dog that chased the cat to the tree hiirta pyydystanyt koira the dog that was catching(trying to catch) the mouse hiiren pyydystanyt koira the dog that caught the mouse (This is one of the blessings/curses of a language with 15 cases and numerous nominal verb forms. When you master the intricacies you miss a similar apparatus in other languages but if you have to learn it starting from nil...) > A simple change to the > grammar would help a lot in this situation. One ought to be able to > say just something like > > (7) *le xoi le smacu pu kavbu ku'o mlatu cu jersi xu'o gerku > > sumti_tail = [sumti_5 [relative_clauses]] sumti_tail_1 > > | relative_clauses sumti_tail_1 > > *| XOI sentence [KUhO# sentence]... XUhO# sumti_tail_1 > > But {mlatu cu jersi} in your example is not a sentence. And if you > change it to {le mlatu cu jersi} you no longer know which sumti is the > head of the clause. It seems I made a mistake retyping the rules. The last line ought to read, of course: *| XOI sentence [KUhO# sumti_tail_1]... XUhO# sumti_tail_1 > Also, we'd need subindexed {ke'a}s to keep > track of what is what. I think the whole thing would be much too > complicated. No more complex than any other nested relatives - whether preposed or postposed. The only difference relative to the normal preposed relatives is the absorbtion of {poi [le poi]...} into a single XOI and the replacement of the final KUhO with XUhO. > Jorge -- --------------------------------- .i mi du la'o sy. Veijo Vilva sy. ---------------------------------