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From: John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: [lojban] Re: {X1 selbri X2} = {X2 se selbri X1}?
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--- Opi Lauma <opi_lauma@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > {melbi tavla} and {melbi se tavla} are tanru,
> and as
> > such are ambiguous. 
> > Now we can reason that {le se tavla} is an
> audience
> > so {le melbi se tavla} 
> > is a beautiful audience.
> 
> 
> In the reference grammar the following is
> written:
> 
> 9.10)    la tam. [cu] melbi tavla la meris.
>     Tom beautifully-talks to Mary.
> 
> "beautifully" and "talks" are connected by "-",
> it
> means that "beauty" is property of "talk". So I
> would
> conclude that {le melbi tavla} is {beautiful
> speaker}
> in the sense that he is beautiful as speaker,
> and in
> the same way {le melbi se tavla} I would
> translate as
> {beautiful audience}, BUT as earlier I would
> say that
> beauty is a property of "being talked by", i.e.
> {X cu
> le melbi se tavla} means that X is beautiful in
> being
> talked, i.e. X is beautiful in doing nothing.
> 
This is all very reasonable and it may be what is
meant.  But it does not *have to be* what is
meant. The meaning of the /-/ is almost as
inspecific as the meaning of tanru connection and
so even it does not confine the meaning much (and
insofar as it coes confine tht meaning, it is
wrong).  {la meris melbi se tavla la tam} says
Mary is talked to by Tom and beauty enters into
it somewhere but whether it is Mary's beauty or
the talikings beauty or the beautiful subject
matter (or the Beauty subject matter) or Tom's
beauty even, is not specified without context
(and not perfectly even with context).