From mattarn@123.net Mon Apr 11 07:54:37 2005 Return-Path: X-Sender: mattarn@123.net X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (qmail 75441 invoked from network); 11 Apr 2005 14:54:37 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m24.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 11 Apr 2005 14:54:37 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mole.e-mol.com) (65.169.135.18) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 11 Apr 2005 14:54:37 -0000 Received: from mail.123.net (nobody@new.e-mol.com [65.169.135.18]) by mole.e-mol.com (8.12.3/8.12.3/Debian-7.1) with SMTP id j3BEsZTd032284 for lojban@yahoogroups.com; Mon, 11 Apr 2005 10:54:35 -0400 Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2005 10:54:35 -0400 Message-Id: <200504111454.j3BEsZTd032284@mole.e-mol.com> To: lojban@yahoogroups.com In-Reply-To: References: <20050411104133.80621.qmail@web31303.mail.mud.yahoo.com> X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: e-mol.com, e-mail online X-From: mattarn@mail.123.net Content-Type: text/plain X-Originating-IP: 65.169.135.18 X-eGroups-Msg-Info: 1:12:0 From: Matt Arnold Reply-To: mattarn@123.net Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: {X1 selbri X2} = {X2 se selbri X1}? X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=117354497 X-Yahoo-Profile: nemorathwald X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 24167 Opi Lauma, you are expecting everything to be verbs, but lojban works on relationships. A verb is an action, but a relationship between two things could be a property, not an action. The relationship between Tom and Mary is "talking" and that relationship is described as "beautiful." - epkat adam@pubcrawler.org wrote: >On Mon, 11 Apr 2005, Opi Lauma wrote: > >> As I understood from previous postings, {X1 talks to >> X2} and {X2 is talked by X1} mean the same. {X1 tavla >> X2} and {X2 se tavla X1} have also the same meaning. > >Yes. > >> My question is whether {X1 melbi tavla X2} and {X2 >> melbi se tavla X1} have also the same meaning. > >Ahhh, interesting question. Since tanru have a huge range >of meanings, I'd say it's likely that they can mean any of >the same set of things. But I'd also guess that they >probably wouldn't get the same default meanings. > >> It seams to me that according to Reference Grammar >> (http://www.lojban.org/publications/reference_grammar/chapter2.html) >> the last two sentences have different meaning. Really, the >> first one is translated as {Tom beautifully-talks to >> Mary.} and the second one is translated as {Mary is a >> beautiful-audience for Tom.}. In the last sentence >> "beautiful" is related with action of Mary, it means that >> Mary is talked by Tom and she does it beautifully. >> However, as I understood from previous postings, "to be >> talked" means "to do nothing" (even stone can be talked), >> so I cannot understand how one can do nothing beautifully? > >No, I don't think the beauty is necessarily an action of >either one. That is, either {la .tam. melbi tavla la >.meris.} or {la .meris. melbi se tavla la .tam} could >really be meaning {la .tam. tavla la .meris. lo ka melbi}, >for instance (Tom talks to Mary about beauty), as well as >many other things. So they probably can mean the same >things, though you might be quicker to guess one or the >other with a different construct. > >Also, you can get the latter arrangement of sumti with the >former tanru, by using {X2 se ke melbi tavla [ke'e] X1}. >The {ke...ke'e} brackets are used for grouping inside a >tanru, so then the {se} modifies the entire tanru place >structure. > >In general, I think {melbi tavla} isn't a great tanru to >ponder too deeply. The essence of tanru is that they can >mean any number of things, as is convenient, so it's nice >to chose ones that convey your meaning succinctly. I think >the purpose of putting {melbi tavla} in the examples was >sort of like a koan, to get people to think about "what are >the ranges of meanings this could have?", but with most >tanru it's fairly obvious what was meant. And if not, you >can always ask for clarification ({di'u tanru fo mo} or >{ki'a} would work fine). >-- >Adam Lopresto >http://cec.wustl.edu/~adam/ > >Eschew obfuscation! > > > > > > > To unsubscribe, send mail to lojban-unsubscribe@onelist.com > > > Yahoo! Groups Links > To visit your group on the web, go to: >http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lojban/ > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: >lojban-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. _______________________________________________________ Sent through e-mol. E-mail, Anywhere, Anytime. http://www.e-mol.com