[lojban-beginners] Re: Feedback on phrases

[GREGORY DYKE <gregory.dyke@epfl.ch>]

> (Aside: is this a reasonable thing to be posting on the list?  Is
> everyone bored by all this basic stuff?)

yep. This is perfect for the beginners list. 

> > > vi ma le mi palku
> > > 	Where are my pants?
> > 
> > That's grammatical, but somewhat incomplete because 
> > it has no selbri. A more complete sentence might be: 
> > {le mi palku ma zvati}
> 
> Why do you need another selbri?  It seems like this says "my pants"
> (observative) "near where?" (tense).  

A lojban sentence or "bridi" expresses a relationship. The relationship is that expressed by the selbri. This is a relationship between arguments or "sumti".

your first sentence has no selbri, only a sumti. (if this makes no sense to you, it's cos I'm no good at explaining).

The main relationship that you are trying to express here is that of your pants being somewhere. This gives the selbri "zvati". You then give it two sumti: "my pants" and "fill_in_the_blank" (to be precise, "le mi palku" is "the things associated with me that am going to identfy as being pants made out of some cloth).

> Is there a reason to prefer {le mi palku ma zvati} over {le mi 
> palku zvati ma}?

yes and no: the second suggestion does not have a selbri: palku and zvati merge together to form a tanru: 
sumti: my pant-type-of-thing-at-somewhere
sumti: fill in the blank
selbri: ????????

you need to terminate the sumti by either inserting a "cu" ("terminate all: selbri follows") or a "ku" (terminate sumti) like so:

le mi palku cu zvati ma (preferred)
le mi palku ku zvati ma

> > > .e'o ko ctigau le ti kanba
> > > 	Please feed this goat.
> > 
> > Probably {le vi kanba}. {le ti kanba} would be 
> > "the goat associated with this thing here", while
> > {le vi kanba} is "the thing that is a goat near me".

 to get something that is really a goat, I suppose you'd say
> {lo vi kanba}, but then it wouldn't mean a particular one. 

yes, that is the somewhat clumsy limitation we have: either you claim a particular one, but in that case, you can't assert that it actually is, or you say "any" while saying what it really is.

as it happens, there would be little point in calling something a goat if it wasn't one, so ko ctigau le [vi] kanba works as well.
 
> 
> I suppose combining the two contains a factual assertion (yes, 
> that really
> is a goat, and it's what I'll be referring to) and hence requires 
> a more
> elaborate expression?  
> {ti kanba .i .e'o ki ctigau ky.}
> {ti goi ky. kanba .i .e'o ki ctigau ky.}
> "That's a goat, please feed it."

"the price of infinite precision is infinite verbosity". apart from ki->ko, that would work though.


> 
> > > le mi badgai sivyta'u cu ca se na'e kufra
> > > 	My jockstrap is uncomfortable.
> > 
> > {ca} insists on the present time. The English translation 
> > is more general, using {ca} here is like saying "my jockstap 
> > is uncomfortable now".
> 
> That was intentional.  These rather silly sentences are supposed 
> to be
> sort of ambiguous.  If I don't specify a duration for {ca}, what is
> assumed?  Just unknown, right now (for a short time) or what?  

yep, completely unknown. The principles of cooperation will probably lead me to assume that your jockstrap is an uncomfortable jockstrap at all times.

mu'o mi'e greg