[lojban-beginners] Re: Please review #002

[ANDREW PIEKARSKI <totus@rogers.com>]

With so many combinations of lenu and lonu suggested for my last to requested reviews, I'm probably less clear on the whole issue than before.  So here goes again - with special apologies to gejyspa who has already made a titanic effort to help me understand.

There seem to be two variables to consider:
1) is this something specific I have in mind (a), or is it general (as in English "the" or "a/some" (b)?
2) is it real (c) or, is it something that may or may not be real (d)?

That gives four possible combinations of article: ac, ad, bc, bd

Now "le" seems to correspond to ad and "lo" seems to correspond to bc.

Question 1: What about ac and bd?
Quesion 2: Why is it that these two variable determine the choice of article.  The first seems obvious (as in English) but why the second (i.e. does the lack of this second variable cause any ambiguity problems in languages where it does not exist?)

mu'o mi'e .andrus.





----- Original Message ----
From: Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>
To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org
Sent: Friday, April 20, 2007 11:21:15 PM
Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: Please review #002


On Friday 20 April 2007 22:27, ANDREW PIEKARSKI wrote:
> So, Pierre, you're suggesting "ca'o" for "while" and "ca" for "when".  But
> in the dictionary, "ca" means "during". Isn't that closer to "while"?

"ca" means that two events occur at the same time but says nothing about their 
duration. One could start when the other ends, or one could be instantaneous, 
and it still occurs ca the other one. "ca'o" indicates an ongoing event or 
one that takes some time.

> Also, I deliberately wanted to try out a tanru for "going to buy".  If the
> tanru I used were reversed to "te vecnu" klama, wouldn't it work?

It would, but you'd have to put the object of "te vecnu" in a be-phrase: le mi 
mamta pu te vecnu be lo jisra be'o klama. You could invert them with "co": le 
mi mamta pu klama co te vecnu lo jisra.

> gejyspa and komfo,amonan suggested "xruti" and "xrukla" for "return".  What
> exactly is the difference between them?

"xrukla" means "go back". "xruti" doesn't imply any going. If I somehow undyed 
my hair, I would say "mi xruti le kerfa le ka rarna skari" .i lei mi kerfa cu 
me'andi skari .i lo nu me'andi skabi'o na ka'e se fatri'a .i mi prami le 
me'andi skari

mu'omi'e pier.