Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 18:57:24 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199802202357.SAA18024@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Jorge_J._Llamb=EDas?=" Sender: Lojban list From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Jorge_J._Llamb=EDas?=" Subject: Re: Translation Exercise (from ConLang) X-To: lojban To: John Cowan X-UIDL: 36626c18160b885cb8d77500487f3161 Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 8011 X-From-Space-Date: Mon Feb 23 11:52:10 1998 X-From-Space-Address: - >I meant "morally good". That's {vrude}. >Well, "vi lo gugypau" was a mistake. As I understand the gerna >I've adding a new, ad hoc place to "xabju". What I intended was >to have "this gugypau" as the x2 of "xabju"; I wanted to put >"lovi gugypau" (remembered from Loglan?) but I couldn't convince >myself that it was grammatical. Then I got sidetracked... You did add a new place, but I think that still makes sense: (I live somewhere) which occurs in this part of the country. >I'm never too sure about "le" and "lo"! Again, I may be >remembering too much from Loglan but I tend to understand "le X" >as "the thing I'm going to refer to as X" and end up treating >"le" as En "the" and "lo" as En "a". Whenever there's negation involved you should be careful with {lo}. It usually means something different than what you'd expect from a quick English gloss, because negation in English usually has a more restricted scope than Lojban {na}. >To my mind, I should have said "lo sicni be..." and "lo[i] cmalu >vamji sicni" because the guy's offering a real 2-lobru'u coin in >exchange for real small change. He doesn't want things merely >described as coins. Yes, {lo sicni be fi lo lobru'u be li re} and {loi cmalu vamji sicni} don't cause problems. You still need {loi} if you are thinking of a single exchange. [I'm not sure that {cmalu} is only for small in size. The gi'uste seems to allow x2 to be any property. Maybe we should ask Lojban what he intended :) How would we talk of little value other than with cmalu?] >I'm not sure about "le/lo gugypau": in this >context a thing he's going to refer to as a country-part is >probably fine! > >I'm a bit confused about how "na ta'e xabju" ends up meaning >that he has no fixed abode. Because {na} has scope over the whole bridi. So you are saying: "It is not the case that there is a place such that I typically live there", but what you mean is "there is a place (namely this place) such that it is not the case that I live there." For the last sentence you need the scope of {lo gugypau} wider than the negation. You could say, for example: mi lo gugypau naku ta'e xabju There is a country part such that I don't typically live there. but if you use {na} instead, it doesn't work. co'o mi'e xorxes