[lojban-beginners] Re: [brivla + brivla] and [brivla + KOhA]

["Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 12/19/07, Vid Sintef <picos.picos@gmail.com> wrote:
> Some pretty much basic questions.
>
> I forgot how the following expression is unambiguous:
>
> { le puzi culno ca kunti }
>
> The given translation is "The one full just a little time ago is now
> empty", so it is meant to be a complete bridi consisting of the sumti
> { le puzi culno } and the selbri { ca kunti }. But is it not also
> possible that the two brivla { culno } and { kunti } make up one
> sumti, meaning "the full-just-a-little-time-ago-kind-of now-empty
> one"?

No, tanru units cannot have their own tag (except within ke-ke'e
brackets). The tense applies to a whole selbri, not to an individual
tanru unit. You can get the other reading with ke-ke'e:

 {le ke puzi culno ke'e ke ca kunti [ke'e]}

That's a single sumti.

> Similarly:
>
> { ko zbasu lo cnino [ku] ti } (Make a new one from this.)
>
> { ko zbasu lo cnino ti [ku] } (Make a new kind of this one.)

The second one is ungrammatical. To use a sumti as a tanru
unit you need to convert it with {me}:

{ko zbasu lo cnino me ti [ku]}

> The two expressions are identical in appearance, which I think is the
> case with every instance of the sequence "descriptor + brivla + KOhA".
> And people almost always elide the delimier { ku } before KOhA. If it
> is that KOhA cannot join a brivla to form some tanru-like unit like
> the one above, why such other sumti constructs like { le mi zdani } is
> valid?

In {le mi zdani}, {mi zdani} is not a tanru. {mi} is a modifier similar
to a relative clause, inserted between {le} and the following selbri.
In fact {le mi zdani} means the same as {le pe mi zdani}.

mu'o mi'e xorxes