From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Mon Sep 25 13:12:48 1995 Received: from VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (vms.dc.lsoft.com [205.186.43.2]) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) with ESMTP id NAA03723 for ; Mon, 25 Sep 1995 13:12:41 -0400 Message-Id: <199509251712.NAA03723@locke.ccil.org> Received: from PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM (205.186.43.4) by VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (LSMTP for OpenVMS v0.1a) with SMTP id F00B7C34 ; Mon, 25 Sep 1995 12:43:12 -0400 Date: Mon, 25 Sep 1995 12:40:41 EDT Reply-To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU Sender: Lojban list From: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU Subject: Re: Beginners question (was: Re: coi za'e jboterymri) To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu Status: OR la kir cusku di'e > I'm to translate sentense "The lojban word 'valsi' is gismu" into lojban. > > My first attempt was: {zo valsi poi lojbo valsi cu gismu}. > > But back-translations seems like "'valsi', the lojban word, is gismu" - > not exactly the same. Really "lojban word 'valsi'" seems very like to > "plgs" and I feel it must be translated as tanru. > > So my second attempt was: {le lojbo valsi me zo valsi cu gismu}. > > And now the question: what version is right? If both, what is better and > why? And what is the difference between them? Both seem correct to me. Perhaps a more literal backtranslation of the first one would be "the 'valsi' that is a Lojban word is a gismu". > And another question: may be {noi} should be instead of {poi} in first > example? I don't catch difference between "restrictive" and "incidental" > in this case. With {noi} the sentence would say: "'valsi', which happens to be a Lojban word, is a gismu." > The only idea I have is that {zo valsi noi lojbo valsi cu > gismu} can be translated like "'valsi', as a lojban word, is gismu" (and > as an Esperanto word it is verb). Does it all seems like truth? "'valsi' as a Lojban word" is the restrictive sense, it should go with {poi}. You are restricting yourself from all 'valsi's to only that one which is a Lojban word. With {noi} you are just making a comment: 'valsi' (which by the way is a lojban word) is a gismu. A way to decide whether you want to use {noi} or {poi} is to see what happens if you omit the relative clause. If you omit {noi}, the claim being made is the same, you are just omiting background information. If you omit {poi}, you are changing the claim. A direct direct translation of "the lojban word 'valsi' is gismu" would be {le lojbo valsi po'u zo valsi cu gismu}. co'o mi'e xorxes