[lojban-beginners] Re: n00b translation request

[Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 8:24 PM, Oren <get.oren@gmail.com> wrote:
> The two sentences below were not my doing! These were the proposed earlier
> in the thread by Pierre Abbat and Luke Bergen, respectively.
>
> Both contain a "sel" prefix, which I know has something to do with a "second
> conversion," but in this context, I can't find an explanation for why it's
> necessary-- we're just making a tanru right? I've skimmed both CLL and
> level 0. If someone can help me understand why 'sel-' is added to these, I
> would be very grateful!
>
> mu'omi'e .ku'us.
>
> On Sat, Oct 31, 2009 at 00:01, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:
>>
>> > Â Â1. *.i nalcertu ke fanva selcpedu
>> > Â Â.i lo to'e certu selfanva bo cpedu*
>> >
>> > Â ÂCan someone explain or point me to where I can learn about why adding
>> > Â Â'sel' is necessary?
>>
>> I think you're confusing the place structures of "cpedu" and "preti". lu
>> ma
>> zasti? li'u preti zo'e mi do .iku'i mi cpedu lu ko ga'orgau le canko li'u
>> do.
>

  "nalcertu ke fanva cpedu" would mean "a non-expert
(translator-requester)", since a cpedu is someone who requests
something.  Since you were translating "a novice translation request"
you wanted "selcpedu", the thing being requested, not "cpedu" the
requester. Similarly, "lo to'e certu fanva bo cpedu" would mean a "a
novice (translator-requester)", whereas "lo to'e certu selfanva bo
cpedu" means a novice (translated-from requester), since a fanva is
one who translates, but a selfanva is what they are translating.
Although arguably, both of these are wrong, at it really should be,
IMO "to'e certu ke nunfanva selcpedu" or "to'e certu ke xelfanva
selcpedu" since you are requesting either  an event of translating
(the first version) or the a translation result (the second version).

            --gejyspa