[lojban-beginners] Re: A Newbie's First Impressions

[Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>]

On Fri, Apr 25, 2003 at 02:40:57PM -0500, xavin@xavin.adhockery.net wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 24, 2003 at 03:23:22PM -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 24, 2003 at 02:49:55PM -0700, Jon MacLeod wrote:
> > > > > There are perfectly valid sentences in English which can
> > > > > confuse native English speakers (wish I could come up with
> > > > > an example).
> > > > 
> > > > The mouse the cat the dog bit chased died.
> > >
> > >  Out of pure masochistic curiousity, what the **** does that
> > >  sentence mean?
> > 
> > The mouse which was chased by the cat which was bit by the dog
> > died.
> 
> Where did you get the rule that says you can do that?

*Rule*?

Perhaps your talking about a different English.  *My* English
doesn't have the rules written down anywhere.

However, note that this is just a more extreme case of "The car the
old man had was blue".  Verbal cadence makes a huge difference in
cases like this.

-Robin

-- 
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/    ***    I'm a *male* Robin.
.i le pamoi velru'e zo'u crepu le plibu taxfu
.i le remoi velru'e zo'u mo .i le cimoi velru'e zo'u ba'e prali .uisai
http://www.lojban.org/   ***   to sa'a cu'u lei pibyta'u cridrnoma toi