On 7/20/08, *peter hering* <pjhering@gmail.com
<mailto:pjhering@gmail.com>> wrote:
jboski finds the following sentence satisfactory:
mi puzi mo'u cu tinju'i le snavei cukta me'e la'o gy confessions
of an economic hitman gy fi'e la djan.perkins.
Is this the correct use of the modals me'e and fi'e? My intention
is to say that the books title is 'Confessions of an Economic
Hitman' and that the book's author is John Perkins. How do I know
to what me'e and fi'e refer?
Jboski likes it because it's gendra (grammatically correct), but it's
not quite smudra (meaning correct, saying what you want it to). The
"me'e" and "fi'e" tags are properly formed, but they're tagging the
main bridi, putting new places into "tinju'i". The correct sentence
might be confusing, so first here's an intermediate sentence:
ti snavei cukta me'e la'o gy Confessions of an Economic Hitman gy fi'e
la djan.perkins.
This is a sound-recording book, with name "Confessions of an Economic
Hitman" and inventor John Perkins.
In this case the selbri is "snavei cukta", so the new places we've
created for name and inventor are places of "cukta", which makes
sense. Incidentally, "cukta"'s third place, the "fi" place, is
already the author, so you could also use that: "cukta fi la
djan.perkins."
So now let's take the next step and package those extra
places into a sumti:
le snavei cukta be me'e la'o gy Confessions of an Economic Hitman gy
bei fi'e la djan.perkins. [be'o] [ku]
A sound recording book with name "Confessions of an Economic Hitman"
and inventor John Perkins.
The combination of "be" (and "bei" to continue to another place, and
"be'o" is the elidable terminator) with "le" gives us a sumti version
of what "ti" referred to in the previous bridi. Now we can take that
and put it into the main bridi: (I've taken out the "cu", which isn't
wrong but isn't necessary here, and replaced "fi'e" with the more
standard "fi".)
mi pu zi mo'u tinju'i le snavei cukta be me'e la'o gy Confessions of
an Economic Hitman gy bei fi la djan.perkins.
I just finished listening to a sound recording of a book named
"Confessions of an Economic Hitman" by John Perkins.
.a'o do se sidju (I hope you are helped;)
.i .e'o ko la .lojban. sarji (support Lojban!)
mu'o mi'e .selkik.