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[lojban-beginners] Re: grammar check for my first few sentences
- To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org
- Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: grammar check for my first few sentences
- From: Stela Selckiku <selckiku@gmail.com>
- Date: Wed, 4 Mar 2009 00:10:59 -0500
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On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 6:13 PM, Alan Post
<alanpost+keyword+lojban.420f97@sunflowerriver.org> wrote:
> I've begun the process of memorizing vocabulary, and have selected
> the first few words from Robin Lee Powell's flashcards[1]. I'm
> constructing sentences using these words, and I'd like to know if my
> sentences are gramatical.
.ui do cusku lo lojbo
(Yay, you say something lojbanic!)
.i mi morij fi lei nu mi co'a lojbo cusku
(I remember about when I started to speak lojbanically.)
.i le te go'i cu te cinmo fi mi
(That was something I felt emotion about.)
.i .a'o do simsa gleki .o'a dai
(Hopefully you're similarly happy, proudly.)
> 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.
No, sorry, a cat cannot usually be the second place of "cusku". (I
think the crazy cat lady in the Simpsons may have an idiolect where
cat throwing can be symbolic, but no one else seems to understand!)
The second place of "cusku", known as a selcusku or selsku, is
generally a specific expression, almost always a series of symbols.
Like "mi cusku lu mi cusku li'u", I say the utterance "mi cusku", or
less specifically "mi cusku lo jufra", I say a sentence.
There are plenty of ways to stuff a cat into the second place of
"cusku", but I'm not going to teach you any of them. Instead, I am
going to teach you about another word with a slightly different
structure, "tavla". The arguments you gave (me, a cat, you, and
Lojban) fit into "tavla" perfectly to say what you were saying, but in
a slightly different order:
mi tavla do le mlatu la lojban
(I talk to you about the cat in Lojban.)
Often the arguments a gismu takes and their order can tell you a lot
about its spirit. Both "cusku" and "tavla" are at root about someone,
the cusku or the tavla, who's saying something. With "cusku" the next
place is the words that they said-- "cusku" is mostly about saying
some particular words. The third place of "cusku", the tersku, is who
those words are said to. Another simpler word in the family is
"bacru", utter; there the x2 is just any sound that comes out of your
mouth, not even necessarily words, and there's no place for who you're
bacru-ing at, you might just be bleating with no thought of an
audience. But in order to "cusku" you need a tersku, someone you
express to, and a velsku, a means of communication which connects you
to them so that they can receive your message. The emphasis with
"tavla" is a little different. A tavla is someone who's saying stuff,
but the next place, the selta'a, is who they're saying it to. The
main point of tavla-ing is that there's someone it's directed at.
Then the x3, the terta'a, is a subject about which you're talking.
The fourth place, the velta'a, is a language.
So "cusku" shows a relationship between a person, some particular
symbolic expression, who they intended that signal to reach, and how
it got there, while "tavla" shows a relationship between a person,
someone who they're talking to, something they're talking about, and
the language that they're speaking in. A tavla wants to communicate
to their selta'a something about their terta'a, so they form a
sequence of words in their velta'a in order to cusku those words (that
selsku) to their tersku/selta'a via an appropriate velsku.
.i mi tavla do la .lojban. la .lojban.
(I talk to you about Lojban in Lojban.)
.i mu'a mi cusku lu la .lojban. sampu li'u do
(For instance, I say "Lojban is simple" to you.)
> .i se lu pa re ci li'u cusku do
> ("123" you said.)
I think you meant:
lu pa re ci li'u se cusku do
("A hundred and twenty-three", you say.)
> 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?
That's right. Incidentally, that sentence reads somewhat oddly to me;
I'm not sure it's wrong, but I probably would have said "lo'u le munje
le'u cmalu".
> Thank you for your help,
>
> -Alan
.i mi ckire do lei nu do pilno la .lojban.
(I'm grateful to you that you use Lojban.)
.i lo nu la .lojban. zenba lo ka ricfu ba jalge loi nu do pilno
(Lojban being increasingly rich will result from your use.)
mu'o virnu troci mi'e selkik