[lojban-beginners] Re: grammar check for my first few sentences

[Minimiscience <minimiscience@gmail.com>]

de'i li 02 pi'e 03 pi'e 2009 la'o fy. Alan Post .fy. cusku zoi skamyxatra.
> .i mi cusku le mlatu do la lojban
> (I talk about the cat to you in lojban.)
> 
> I'm not sure that saying "le mlatu" in the x2 is proper.  I'm not
> sure if the x2 place of cusku permits saying "the cat" or whether I
> need a different or additional word.
.skamyxatra

Technically, it's grammatically correct, but it's improper usage of "{cusku}."
The x2 place is supposed to be the text that is spoken, either quoted with
"{lu} ... {li'u}" or indirectly described with "{lo se du'u}."  If you simply
want to describe the subject of your discourse rather than what you were saying
about it, it would be better to use "{tavla}" in place of "{cusku}" and switch
the x2 and x3 places.  (Also, the x4 of "{tavla}" is explicitly the language
used, rather than the "expressive medium," and so is even more fitting.)

> .i se lu pa re ci li'u cusku do
> ("123" you said.)
> 
> Are the lu/li'u required here?  Is this the same sentence as "se pa
> re ci cusku do" or is that saying "the concept of 123 you speak
> about?"  I assume the status of lu/li'u is the same if you replace
> "pa re ci" with "coi."

The "{lu}" and "{li'u}" are required; however, the "{se}" needs to be placed
immediately before the "{cusku}," without any intervening {sumti}.  Also,
saying "{pa re ci se cusku do}" would mean "123 utterances [are somehow related
to] you," as a bare number string acts as a quantifier for a {sumti} rather
than as a separate {sumti}.

> In "Direct quotations" in Lojban for Beginners[2], the sample sentence
> for lu/li'h has a "cu" in it:
> 
>   lu le munje li'u cu cmalu
> 
> I would guess that the "cu" is optional, because the terminator li'u
> is used.  Is this correct?

The "{cu}" is optional because "{cmalu}" is not preceded by a {selbri}.  If the
"{li'u}" were removed, the sentence would become "``The world is small''," a
{bridi} within an unterminated quotation, and if the "{cu}" were also omitted,
it would be "``The world-small''," a single {sumti} inside an unterminated
quotation.

mu'omi'e .kamymecraijun.

-- 
ko kutygau le do skami jbipru bo vreji