[lojban-beginners] Re: tanru order

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

On 7/1/08, Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  You know, xorxes, I think I can finally put my finger on what's
> always bothered me about your interpretations of those tanru
> orderings.  IF the tanru had been "ka vajni kei mutce" (An
> importance-type of muchness") THEN I could see your POV that it means
> "mutce be lo ka vajni")

It doesn't exactly mean that, but it would be more precise, yes. From
most to least precise:

mutce lo ka vajni
ka vajni kei mutce
vajni mutce

> But without the ka, "vajni mutce" means (to
> me) an important muchness,  that is to say, that the extreme thing
> itself is important, but not necessarily that it extreme in the
> quailty of being important.

Why would you take it to be extreme in some unmentioned property
in preference to the one mentioned in the seltau?

> For example, I can easily see "mi vajni
> mutce be lo ka bebna" --- I am an important superfool.

Yes, when an explicit property is put in x2, then that one has priority,
no doubt about it.

> Things in the
> seltau position tend to be interpreted adjectivally/adverbially, as
> well they should be, since they are supposed to modify the tertau
> (which would therefore be treated nounally, verbally, (or adverbially
> if they followed by another brivla))

What does "adjectivally/adverbially" mean in Lojbanic terms?
I don't see how in {vajni mutce}, {vajni} fails to modify the tertau:
it provides a good choice of property for its x2 place.
Do you have the same objections for {vajni zmadu}, {vajni mleca},
{vajni traji}?

> Without the ka in the tanru, it
> also requires mental massaging to get "vajni mutce" into "mutce be lo
> ka vajni".

Compared to what? What is the explicit meaning of {mutce vajni}?
(I mean explicit in Lojban terms, expanding the tanru.)

> I think one test to figure out which gismu belongs in the
> tertau spot is to figure out which is more germaine.  And the easiest
> way to test that is to test dropping each term from the sentenc,e and
> see which one most obscures the meaning when it is left out:
>
> na vajni fa le du'u porsi makau ki'u le nu abu ka'e
> spuda no le re preti
>
> na mutce fa le du'u porsi makau ki'u le nu abu ka'e
> spuda no le re preti
>
>  Hmmm... we either have something that's not important or something
> that's not much.  It's a close call in this case, but I think "vajni"
> wins out as being more germaine, IMHO

If you only say {ti na mutce}, naturally I have no idea what you may
mean, I will ask {mutce ma}. But if there is some clue in the context, for
example if we have been discussing things with a given property, or
if we use an informative seltau, I can figure out what the implicit x2 is.

mu'o mi'e xorxes