[lojban-beginners] beginner questions

[Steve Salkin <steve@salkin.org>]

Hi all,

I started studying lojban a few months back. I don't have a lot of free
time, but I've enjoyed it a lot so far. I have some beginner-type-of
questions for anyone of a mind to answer them.

In no particular order:

(1) In the translation of H.P. Lovecraft's "The Book" at
http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=tu%27a+le+cukta&bl the
opening sentence in English is:
My memories are very confused.
and in Lojban it is given as:
ni'o lei se morji be mi cu kalsa mutce
which seems to parse
<start paragraph>the mass of memories I recall are chaotic in aspect
extremeness.
I would have thought it would work:
ni'o lei se morji be mi mutce kalse (are extreme in property disorder).

Any thoughts appreciated.

(2) Do people really find constructions that mix speaker's time and
sentence time to be fine in usage? For example, "mi puzuze'a gunka" from
LFB; would the usage "puzuku mi ze'a gunka" seem more awkward in Lojban?
While I don't find it so awkward to have the time and space both given
in the same spot, having two different kinds of time orientation given
together like that is still feeling very odd to me.

(3) I understand from a comment in LFB or What is Lojban? that xamgu is
not a general replacement for English "good." vrude is suggested when
one wishes to have a person in the x1 place of xamgu. My questions are,
can I understand vrude in the sense of "arete" - the attic greek term
victorian translators liked to render as "virtue?" Secondly, is "do
xamgu gerku" all right for "good dog"/"you're a good dog" or is this
more of a case for an attitudinal like ".ui do gerku" or ".ui gerku"? Or
something else?


Thanks,

S-