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Re: [lojban-beginners] Re: Trying my first translation ... a few questions.
On Saturday, August 29, 2015 at 5:53:41 AM UTC-4, selpa'i wrote:la .xabyltos. cu cusku di'e
> Continuing on, I find that I'm not too sure about identifying amounts.
> I'm also not quite sure what to do with "them" in the second sentence.
> It seems like it falls into context again.
>
> Bird says
> You have lost your toys. You have lost them all.
> .i do zvajuncri lo do keldai .i do zvajuncri ro da
It can be tricky to back-reference in Lojban sometimes, but here you can
use {ri} without problems. {ri} picks up the previous sumti (skipping
certain pronouns), so in
do zvajuncri lo do keldai .i do zvajuncri ri
"You lost your toys. You lost them."
the {ri} would refer to {lo do keldai}.
Now to say "each" of something, you only have to prepend {ro} to it:
do zvajuncri ro ri
"You lost each of them."
If you are curious, {ro <sumti>} is equivalent to {ro da poi ke'a menre
<sumti>} ("each thing among the referents of <sumti>"). The same applies
to any other number you put before a sumti.
I thought long and hard about using ri here, but then I didn't think that it fit as I thought that it would refer to do instead. I must have missed the part about it skipping pro-sumti. I was also considering ra as well, but I know that it is not used as often, and that it would require the audience to stop and try to figure out what was meant.
> And I had also forgotten the title of the book, or I would have
> remembered that not everything is tangible that he looses. I am
> assuming that this is where I would need cirko and not zvajuncri. But
> then again, they treat it as a physical thing in the book. The Mouse
> finds it later in the park, and is using it.
>
> "Oh Puppy," says Bird. "You have lost your bark!"
> lu .ue doi la cityge'u - sei la cipni cu cusku - do cirko lo ka do
> gercmo li'u
{do cirko lo ka ce'u gercmo}. Every {ka}-abstraction contains at least
one {ce'u}, and {cirko} knows that when it sees a property in its x2, it
will "insert" its x1 into the {ce'u}-slot of the property. {ce'u} is a
*bit* like {ke'a}; you don't say {do noi do melbi} but {do noi *ke'a*
melbi}. If you're confused, it might be good to seek out some more
information about {ka}-abstractions.
As for having to distinguish {cirko} and {zvajuncri} unlike the source
text, you have the option of always using {cirko} and adding a {tu'a} in
the case of non-properties. I don't know if you have come across {tu'a}
yet. {tu'a <sumti>} is short for {lo su'u <sumti> co'e}, that is "an
unspecified abstraction involving <sumti>".
This means you can say {cirko tu'a lo bolci} when you mean {cirko lo ka
djuno lo du'u lo bolci cu zvati ma kau}, because the latter is an
abstraction involving {lo bolci}.
So I really need to go and read up on abstractions. I know that isn't exactly what you are saying, but it is clear to me that my understanding is clearly lacking here.
Thank you again. I really do put a lot of effort into this, as a) I would like to get it right, and b) I appreciate everyone's time, and don't want to waste it on a bunch of guesses.
mi'e la selpa'i mu'o
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