Re: [lojban-beginners] How to avoid this ambiguity

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Tuesday 16 August 2011 10:19:22 .arpis. wrote:
> I said this sentence (in English): I only understood half the jokes because
> I sat in on your NLP class.
> Based on my professor's reply, I realized that my sentence was ambiguous
> (although, if I had meant the meaning he interpreted it as, I would have
> put an only before "sat" as well).
>
> Simplified: I only understood half {zo'e goi ko'a} because {zo'e goi ko'e}
>
> What I meant was more along the lines of "I understood any {ko'a} at all
> only because of {ko'e}, and I still only understood half of {ko'a}"
>
> When I tried to translate the short form to lojban, I found that either the
> ambiguity was still there or I didn't know in which direction it was
> resolved. Regardless, here was my attempt.
>
> {mi jimpe fi pi mo'a ji'i mu ko'a seja'e ko'e}

I consider the English sentence badly worded. I would say:
I understood only half the jokes because I sat in on your NLP class.
mi jimpe fi mo'a pimu lei xajmii seja'e lo nu vitke do le nirbau nunctu
or
I understood half the jokes only because I sat in on your NLP class.
mi jimpe pimu lei xajmi seja'e po'o lo nu vitke do le nirbau nunctu

The English sentence with "I only understood" means that there were half the 
jokes which I understood, but did not learn well enough to tell myself, or 
something like that. And "I only sat in on your NLP class" implies something 
like "I didn't take it for credit".

Pierre
-- 
gau do li'i co'e kei do

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