Date: Sat, 20 Dec 1997 09:02:44 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712201402.JAA17893@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Robin Turner Sender: Lojban list From: Robin Turner Subject: Re: wants and needs X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2869 X-From-Space-Date: Sat Dec 20 09:02:46 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU co'o doi Thanks for the Ferrari feedback! Reluctant as I am to burden the mmembers of Lojban-list with my appalling grammar, this kind of thing is worth more than hours studying the refgram (and also seems to raise some interesting discussion points). la kris. cucku di'e >Robin wrote to another list: >> mi cu nitcu la feraris. le nu se djica = >ninmu >> I [function] need [article]Ferrari[article][event] ["passive"]desire = >women >> I need a Ferrari in order to be desired by women. > >I would translate this as "I need a ferrari in order to be a desireable = >woman". If you want "woman" to be a sumti, you need an article. li'a do drani Which article would depend on the desires of the speaker - probably lo'a ninmu is most appropriate here. >Also, note that you don't need {cu} here, although it's allowed. I put it in for the benefit of the naljbo audience, though I often retain {cu} in my own writing to help keep things clear - I prefer to elide as little as possible until I've got the sentence structures etched into my brain. >> I could also say simply "mi cu nitcu la porc.", but this would >> automatically invite the response "cu nitcu ko'a ma" (need it (for) = >what?). > >You can't start a sentence with {cu}. Just {nitcu ko'a ma} or {nitcu = >fi ma} would work fine. I guess the former is clearer when laying out = >these sentences for a naljbo audience. .ua ki'e I'd thought it was just normally elided. la xorxes. cusku di'e >>> mi cu nitcu la feraris. le nu se djica ninmu >> >>Question: is {la feraris.} the appropriate way to refer to the brand >>name of a car? > >It might be, but then the brand is not what was needed, perhaps >{lu'a la feraris}: a member of the class called Ferrari. There's also >the problem of what goes in the x2 of nitcu. We don't want to assert >that there is some Ferrari such that I need it. I was uncritically following the classic example mi klama la bastn. la atlentas. ti la ford. understanding {la} to mean simply "that named", rather than "a specific entity named". pe'i.o'acu'i this problem stems from the same root as the le/lo controversy. Just as we associate (for reasons I still do not undersatnd) specificity with non-veridicality (and vice versa) we also seem to associate having a given name with specificity (usually, but not always the case). >I would say: > > mi nitcu le nu mi se karcrferari kei le nu mi se djica loi ninmu > I need to be ferraried in order to be desired by women. > >[{karcrferari} inherits the place structure of {karce}: "x1 is a Ferrari >for carrying x2 propelled by x3".] Cool! But does {karcrferari} mean "to have a Ferrari", "to drive a Ferrari" or "to be a passenger in a Ferrari"? co'o mi'e robin. Robin Turner Bilkent Universitesi, IDMYO, Ankara, Turkey.