[lojban-beginners] alice questions

[Chris Capel <pdf23ds@gmail.com>]

Hi,

I've been studying the translation of Alice in Wonderland the past few
days as a way to learn vocabulary that I can immediately see used in
context (and an entertaining one, at that). I take it a bridi at a
time and try to decipher the meaning as well as I can, adding all the
unfamiliar words into Supermemo (.oicu'i ku'i na spofu), and looking
up some cmavo in CLL until I understand the bridi completely. I've
come across a couple of points (after {ji'i}) that are more likely me
being stupid than otherwise, and so I guess this is the list for them.
I'll probably be bugging {ro do} in the future.

First, {bo}. When you see the sequence {i PU bo}, does that mean that
bo is grouping the two bridi together, using the sense of the PU cmavo
used?

{i abu ca'o menli jdice [...] le du'u xukau le nu pluka fa le nu zbasu
lo xrula linsi cu se vamji le raktu poi nu sa'irbi'o gi'e crepu loi
xrula .i ca bo suksa fa le nu lo blabi ractu poi xunblabi se kanla cu
bajra zo'a abu}

When I first saw it, I though bo was just used in tanru. But even when
it's not used in tanru, it seems like it ought to be more than just a
simple terminator. It makes sense that it would tie the two bridi
together, allowing the tense cmavo to modify the relationship of the
bridi.

So is this an accurate way to look at it?

Second, {lo blabi ractu poi xunblabi se kanla}. Why doesn't this mean
"a white rabbit with a pink body"? {se kanla} is the body that holds
the eyes, right? So {xunblabi se kanla} means "pink [type-of] being
body(ies) with eyes" or something, not anything close to "having pink
eyes". Oh, and why the {poi}? Oughtn't it be {lo blabi ractu noi kanla
noi xunblabi}? It seems like non-restrictive ought to be the default,
being less error-prone, and it doesn't seem that {poi} is required
here.

Third. In {i la'e di'u no'e ba'e mutce le ka cizra}, what kind of
cadence might that be spoken with? Is stress usually put on {ba'e}, or
on the next word? And in {leka} and {lenu}, is stress usually put on
the first or second cmavo? I realize that there's probably no
consensus on this, as no standard for the spoken language has really
coalesced from usage, there being little vocal usage between
geographically separated speakers. And in three-syllable lujvo where
the penultimate is "y", like {sezysku}, is the stress on the
penultimate or the ... um ... third-to-last? (antepenultimate?
penulpenultimate? anteanteultimate?)

One more thing. Are many of the {le} used in Alice better changed to
{lo} after xorlo?

I've actually gotten further than this mail might indicate (by a
couple paragraphs even!), but I'm coming back to ask some stuff, and
I'm learning all the places of every gismu I come across as I go, so
maybe I'll speed up a little by chapter three or so. :-)

Chris Capel
--
"What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to bat a bee? What is it
like to be a bee being batted? What is it like to be a batted bee?"
-- The Mind's I (Hofstadter, Dennet)