[lojban-beginners] Re: A question about se

["Newton, Philip" <Philip.Newton@gedas-onsite.de>]

la .Zakyris. cu cusku di'e
> Hmm... I think I get it. It's like {le nabmi mlatu}
> would be "the problem cat" but {le mlatu se nabmi}
> would be "the problem encountered by the cat" and
> {le mlatu nabmi} would be "the cat that is a problem"
> and {le nabmi se mlatu} would be "the cat of a
> problematic breed". Or am a still missing something?

Close! You still seem to have problems with sumti based on a tanru with a
tertau containing SE.

{le nabmi mlatu} would be "the problem-ish cat", or "the problem cat".
{le mlatu se nabmi} is a kind of {se nabmi}, so a kind of problem
encounterer. Perhaps "the cat-ish problem encounterer", or "the cat who
encountered a problem".
{le mlatu nabmi} would be "the cat-ish problem", so maybe "the cat that is a
problem" (but the place structure is that of {nabmi}, not that of {mlatu},
though there are ways around this, e.g. involving {co})
{le nabmi se mlatu} would be "the problem-ish breed of cat" -- it's a kind
of {se mlatu}, so a kind of breed.

If you want a kind of cat, whose breed happens to be problematic, you
probably want something like {le mlatu be lo nabmi} "the cat with-breed a
problem", using {be} to link an argument.

Oh, and "the problem encountered by the cat" is a kind of problem, so a kind
of {nabmi}. If you want to say that it's the kind (x1) of nabmi that has the
cat as x2, {be} is again what you want -- {le nabmi be le mlatu} or,
somewhat literally, "the problem with-encounterer the cat".

Does that help any?

mu'o mi'e .filip.