[lojban-beginners] Re: More Lojban word queries

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

On Thu, Aug 26, 2004 at 10:39:11PM +0100, Chris Howlett wrote:
> coi ro do
> 
> I started running through Robin's SuperMemo lojban flashcards
> today. In my first swathe, there were three word that I hadn't
> heard of, and didn't even understand the definition of once
> SuperMemo told me what it was. 

Yeah, the definitions stink.  We're working on that.

> So, in layman's terms, what do "tu'a", "sei" and "la'e" mean, and
> how are they used?

Ouch.

"tu'a le broda" ~= "le su'u le broda cu co'e".  In other words,
"tu'a <sumti>" basically means "something to do with <sumti>".

It's used for the Lojban equivalent of "Try the door", where what
you really mean is "Try to accomplish the event of opening the
door".  "Try the door" in Lojban is "troci tu'a le vorme".

"sei" introduces a meta-linguistic bridi.  I'm not sure what else to
say about it.  It's used for things like "(said Mary)" in "That was
lovely (said Mary)".

"la'e <sumti>" means "the thing refered to by <sumti>".  "di'u", for
example, refers to the previous utterance (usually just the previous
sentence), but if someone says "Bob is visiting", and you're happy
about that, you can't say "mi gleki di'u", because that means that
you are literally happy about the preceding sentence as a sentence
(well phrased or something), so you say "mi gleki la'e di'u".

-Robin