[lojban-beginners] Re: The Prophet

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Monday 06 August 2007 19:16, Vid Sintef wrote:
> mi'e vid
>
> Again a sentence from The Prophet:
>
> .i so'i se djedi nu mi lo cortu gi'e lemi ka sepli cu nicte go'i gi'e
> ma kakne cliva le ko'a cortu .e le ko'a ka sepli secau lo xenru

This doesn't parse.
{so'i} counts {se djedi nu mi lo cortu ...}.
{se djedi} is a seltau, {nu ...} is a tertau.
{mi lo cortu ...} is an abstractand, and ought to be a complete bridi.
{lo cortu ...} is the second sumti of the abstractand.
{cortu gi'e ...} is a selbri which {lo} turns into a sumti.
{cortu gi'e le} is ungrammatical. {gi'e} joins two bridi-tails, and a 
bridi-tail cannot begin with {le}.

> (Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long
> were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his
> aloneness without regret?)

{so'i se djedi} doesn't mean "long were the days". It means "many different 
lengths of time intervals, each of which is measured in days".

{lemi ka sepli cu nicte go'i} means "My separateness is a nighttime <whatever 
the previous sentence was>". I'm not even sure I could figure out what the 
previous sentence was if I had the context, as what we have doesn't parse.

{ma kakne cliva} probably should be {ma ka'e cliva}, but as it's preceded by 
another messed-up {gi'e}, I'm not sure.

{secau lo xenru} should be {secau lo nu xenru}.

> Where is the "I have spent within its walls"?

Nowhere that I can see.

> Neither I'm clear about the sequence {nu mi lo cortu}.

A sentence can begin with {nu mi lo cortu}, but here it's an error, perhaps 
for {lo nu mi cortu}.

Pierre