Message-Id: <m0qZ0aj-00004tC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Fri, 12 Aug 1994 13:41:03 EDT
Reply-To:     jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Allnoun
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 2081
Lines: 51

la lojbab cusku di'e

> TO> "The boy that beat the dog that chased the cat that caught the mouse
> TO> that ate the cheese that the maid left on the table."
>
> Sounds like fun.  Here is Lojban observative-only mode.
>
> fetsyselfu pruselcliva ke jubme cpana ke'e cirla citka smacu kavbu mlatu
> jersi gerku raplydarxi nanla
>
> (female-server past-left-behind) (table upon) cheese eater mouse catcher cat
> chaser dog repeatedly-hitter boy

Could you come up with that without writing it down? Also, in your phrase
it would be the table (or the table top) rather than the cheese that was left
by the maid, unless you want to invoke tanru ambiguity, in which case the whole
sentence could mean anything.

The modifier before modificand order makes it impossible (at least for me)
to understand what that says, unless I read it slowly and think about it
for a long time, but that's not how language is supposed to work.

>  The string could also be
> inverted using the "of-type" particle, giving:
>
> boy of-type repeatedly-hitter of-type dog of-type chaser of-type cat of-type
> catcher of-type mouse of-type eater of-type cheese of-type table-upon of-type
> past-left-behind of-type female-server

Let me write that in Lojban:

nanla co raplydarxi co gerku co jersi co mlatu co kavbu co smacu co citka
co cirla co ke cpana co jubme ke'e co pruselcliva co fetsyselfu

which is more understandable than the standard order, because you know from
the beginning what you're talking about. (It still is hard to understand
because the tanru semantics are so vague.)

Whereas a more direct translation:

le nanla poi raplydarxi le gerku poi jersi le mlatu poi kavbu le smacu poi
citka le cirla poi le fetsyselfu pu cliva ke'a noi cpana le jubme

is as long as the "grammarless" co-sentence, and is as understandable as
the English one, and of course has more or less the same grammar elements.

I don't have anything against "observative mode", if by that you mean the
use of many observatives and nothing else, but tanru with more than three
or four components are indigestible.

Jorge