From - Tue Dec 17 10:09:08 1996 Reply-To: nsummers@hutch.com.au Date: Tue Dec 17 10:09:08 1996 Sender: Lojban list From: Nick Summers Subject: Re: BEGINNER'S QUESTION: internal sumti To: lojban mailing list X-UIDL: 4b5717a260d30986d24b3ad3271ea655 X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2373 Message-ID: The salient points gleaned from the several replies received so far are I think: 1 > I would tend to interpret "Y vecnu" as a salesperson who sells Ys, > because "vecnu" is transitive in an essential way. (That's not a > Lojban concept.) Thus: "X is a salesman of sweet-talking dolls". (jc) (Question: do I interpret "Y vecnu" as the tanru < Y vecnu > or the bridi < Y cu vecnu >?) 2 > The element isn't "almost clausal", it IS clausal (bridi), and would > have been clausal even without the arguments. (jc) (Question: is it clausal to the tanru or to the bridi or both?) 3 > As for "who...", I like to think of it like this: a bridi expresses a > relation between all of its arguments, even if some are not explicitly > designated by words. (jc) (of course! Too much desire for complexity on my part.) 4 > More accurately, < tavla vecnu > means a `talker type-of seller' > Note the use of `type-of' in the English. `Talker' modifies `seller' > and in English the best sense is often obtained by saying that the > modifier restricts the sense of the modified, i.e., makes it a `type of'. > Thus, you have > ta cu tavla vecnu vau > which means > That is a talker type of seller. (rjc) ...ah ha...(what I need here is a mark, like the !, but which expresses delight at sudden revelation; the enlightenment mark) SO: That is a talker type of seller. That is a talker.to.you.about.beautiful.things of type salesperson. That is a salesperson(talking.to.you.about.beautiful.thing(s)). That's a salesperson who talks to you about beautiful things. Right? > Once you have the modifier-modified relationship right, the rest of > the example from the diagramed summary makes sense, at least to me. (rjc) And to me, too. I'll try it backwards, from english to lojban, and see how I go. Thanks to Jim Carter, Robert J. Chassell, and Florent Dupont-De-Dinechin. Nick There are many linguistic/grammatical terms floating around these lists that I've never heard of. (My favourite at the moment is agglutinative.) Before I head for my oed, are there any online resources for their decipherment? I have seen mention of the LINGUIST list, which may be above my head, but does anyone have an address anyway?