[lojban-beginners] Re: tavla N2.

[Michael van der Gulik <mikevdg@gulik.co.nz>]

Hello Roman!

I'm learning Lojban too! Until now, my impression is that it is rather a 
difficult language, but mostly because it is very different from English.

Could somebody check the following to make sure what I'm saying is 
actually correct?

Roman Gorbunov wrote:

>      I just started to use lojban-beginers mailing list, so pleas 
> forgive me my clumsiness.

:-) we were all like that at some stage.

>      I do not understand why "la meris. melbi se tavla la tam." should 
> be translated as "Meris is beautiful listener of Tom."

I think that translation is wrong. What you're saying above is "Mary 
(Meris) is beautiful and Mary is listening to Tom". What I think you 
mean is:

"Mary is beautifully listening to Tom".

>      Realy "sumti_1 selbri sumti_2" shold to have the the same meaning 
> as "sumti_2 se selbri sumti_1", isn't?
>      It means "la tam. tavla la meris." is equal to "la meris. se 
> tavla la tam.", i.e. second sentence cannot be translated "Meris 
> listen Tom", because if Tom speaks to Meris it does not necessarely 
> means that Meris listen to Tom.
I thought I could answer that easily, but that's actually quite difficult.

Definition of tavla -  x1 talks/speaks to x2 about subject x3 in 
language x4.

If you take the "se" and "melbi" out, {la meris. melbi se tavla la tam} 
is the same as saying {la tam. tavla la meris}, in English "Tom talks to 
Mary (Meris)". Now, if you use "se", x1 and x2 get switched, and the 
accent is switched to (the original) x2 which is now x1. In other words, 
"Mary is talked to by Tom". Using "se" in Lojban is the same as 
switching the object and subject in English. Unfortunately I never did 
English grammar at school so I shouldn't comment further on that :-P.

Now, the tanru in your example is "melbi se tavla". Using English 
terminology, "melbi" is an adverb (? I think), and "se tavla" is a verb. 
The object (x1) of "se tavla" is x2 of tavla which is the person who is 
being talked to (i.e. the listener). The "melbi" in the tanru acts like 
an adjective.

So:
{x1 tavla x2} - x1 talks to x2 (about some subject x3, in some language x4)
{x1 se tavla x2} - x1 is talked to by x2, or x1 listens to x2 (about 
some subject x3, in some language x4, implied from now on)
{x1 melbi tavla x2} - x1 beautifully talks to x2.
{x1 melbi se tavla x2} - x1 beautifully listens to x2.

Actually, if I remember rightly, tanru are ambiguous. That is to say 
that while the last brivla (gismu, fu'ivla or lujvo) of the tanru is the 
one that is actually used (in this case, "tavla"), the preceding tanru 
(in this case "melbi") simply associate their meaning in <wave hands in 
air> some way with the last brivla ("tavla"). In this case, that means 
that there is talking, and in some way, "beautiful" is associated with it.

Looking that Chapter 4, section 5 of the reference grammer, {x1 melbi se 
tavla x2} could mean that {x1 melbi}, or {x2 melbi} or that the style of 
talking is melbi.

Mikevdg.