From LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:58:54 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI Received: (qmail 10411 invoked from network); 12 Dec 1996 19:36:01 -0000 Received: from segate.sunet.se (192.36.125.6) by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with SMTP; 12 Dec 1996 19:36:01 -0000 Received: from listmail.sunet.se by SEGATE.SUNET.SE (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.1a) with SMTP id <14.8E2D0CEB@SEGATE.SUNET.SE>; Thu, 12 Dec 1996 20:36:03 +0100 Date: Thu, 12 Dec 1996 14:21:49 -0501 Reply-To: "Robert J. Chassell" Sender: Lojban list From: "Robert J. Chassell" Subject: Re: BEGINNER'S QUESTION: internal sumti X-To: nsummers@hutch.com.au, lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu, bob@rattlesnake.com To: Veijo Vilva In-Reply-To: <32B02212.1EA6@hutch.com.au> (message from Nick Summers on Fri, 13 Dec 1996 01:17:47 +1000) Content-Length: 1950 Lines: 53 Message-ID: Taking an example from the Diagrammed Grammar: ta cu tavla be do bei le melbi ku be'o vecnu Am I correct in the following assumptions: 1 < tavla vecnu > is a tanru for 'salesperson' Not quite. 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. Once you have the modifier-modified relationship right, the rest of the example from the diagramed summary makes sense, at least to me. That you had trouble indicates a bug in the document, and indeed, no mention in it is made of the useful English gloss `type-of', only (with respect to "co" of the reverse, `of-type'). * talk, x1 talks/speaks to x2 about subject x3 in language x4 /:/ [not limited to vocal speech, but this is implied by the x4 without context of some other medium of conversation (use cusku, casnu, skicu, ciksi for weaker implication of vocal communication); converse/discuss/chat (= simta'a, simsku, vricysimta'a for a conversation not clearly delimited by subject)] /=/ tavla (tav ta'a) * sells, x1 [seller] sells/vends x2 [goods/service/commodity] to buyer/purchaser x3 for amount/cost/expense x4 /:/ [x1 is a salesperson/salesman/vendor; x3 buys/purchases x2 from x1 (= terve'u for reordered terms); x4 is the price of x2 to x3 (= velve'u for reordered terms); for sale (= fitselve'u, selvenfriti); x2 may be a specific object, a commodity (mass), an event, or a property; pedantically, for objects/commodities, this is sumti-raising from ownership of the object/commodity (= po'erve'u, po'erselve'u for unambiguous semantics)] /=/ vecnu (ven ve'u)