Message-Id: <199511190813.DAA17169@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Sun, 19 Nov 1995 09:03:29 MET
Reply-To: Goran Topic <topic@STUDENT.MATH.HR>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Goran Topic <topic@STUDENT.MATH.HR>
Subject:      Re: self-descriptions?
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

> > mi'e goran. .i mi caki nanca lirepapisu'o .i le kerfa .e le kanla vu'o
> > po'e mi manbu'e
>
> What does {vuo} mean there? I'd have expected {zie}. Or maybe
> {kanlvuo}, ocularly-ukrainian?

Nooo, it... Example speaks for itself:

da .e (de po'e di)

but,

(da .e de) vu'o po'e di

In other words, vu'o takes the whole preceding complex sumti and attaches
the following relative (clause/phrase)(s) to it all.

> > lo banske .i mi pu tadni ca'o lo nanca remei lo cmacyske .iku'i mi
> > steba gi'esemu'ibo sisti ca lenu mi co'a jimpe ledu'u mi selzdi lenu
> > cilre le vrici bangu noi so'ecu'o tcefange gi'ebazibo co'a tadni lo
> > banske
>
> "the sundry languages that are most probably very strange and soon study
> glottology"? Does that {gie (ba zi bo)} necessarily terminate the noi
> clause?

Answering in the reverse order: I don't know. You prompted me to check with
the parser, and it says that it doesn't. It doesn't terminate NU, either.
And I seem to remember someone saying the opposite. Oops for me. Now I
see many other things that could be said much better in that sentence,
so... Second attempt:

.iku'i mi steba gi'esemu'ibo sisti ca lenu mi co'a jimpe ledu'u mi selzdi
lenu cilre le vrici bangu noi so'eke'a tcefange keikei gi'ebazibo co'a
se ckule filo banske

"But I got frustrated, so I stopped when I realised that I enjoy learning
various languages, most of them very strange, and soon after that I
started studying linguistics."

> > .i ku'i le mi dansu kansa co'a kansa na'ebo mi
>
> Shd it be {le mi dansu kansa cu coa kansa}?

Could. Not "Should". They're equivalent.

> > .i mi nunxeldraco kelci
>
> I'd have thought {nu xe draci} and {nu draci} are synonymous and that
> therefore {nundraci} is preferable. The only difference is that I'd
> expect x2 and x6 of {nundraci} and {nunxeldraci} to be swapped.

I guess I'd say nunxeldraci (yes, typo, sorry) kelci is nearest to
"acting (i.e. role-playing) game", while nundraci kelci is more like
"game of something being a drama". It is a very subtle difference,
and one mainly of pragmatics and subjective understanding, not of
officially established semantics, but that is just me, of course. It
appealed to the author, if you will vauzo'o.

> > .i mi kelci lo selcpa karda po'u la djixad.
>
> Cards called Djixad? I thought that was what lei muslo wage against
> the forces of light. Is that what you name your cards?

Yes, you are right, of course, but it is also the name of the
collectable card game by Wizards of the Coast based on White Wolf's
Vampire: The Masquerade role-playing game, and the word Jyhad here
describes the aeons-long war the most ancient vampires wage against each
other using their childer, their younger kindred. I didn't name the
cards.

> coo, mie noi friko ninmu tordu marksista kuo and

??? And the African-womanly short Marxist ??? ki'acai?

co'o mi'e. goran.

--
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!n(+@) y+. GeekCode v2.1, modifications left to reader to puzzle out