[lojban-beginners] Re: Translation

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 11/2/05, Naomi K <alien.juxtaposition@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ok, with your help, I have hopefully improved my statement:
>
> {lenu ro do cu pu zukte ta se ki'ubo mi djica lenu mi jikselsi'a}
> The-event all you acted like 'that' is the reason I want the-event I am
> socially-esteemed.
>
> Hmm...I'm thinking that {ro do} would be more appropriate {ro prenu}, since
> he is only addressing the event that his friends did, and not what everyone
> did.
>
> I added {pu} to hopefully stress that this event has passed, and is not
> going on right this minute.

{pu} does indicate that the event is in the past, but {ta} can only be used
to refer to something present. For example, I can say:

     {mi pu tcidu ta ca le prulamnanca}
     I did read that-thing-there at the past-adjacent-year

but only if the thing I read last year is now present so that I can refer
to it with {ta}. I can't use {ta} to refer to something not present. For
example, if you are now climbing a wall, I could say:

    {mi pu zukte ta ca le prulamdei}
    I did that yesterday

where {ta} refers to the event "(someone is) climbing a wall", but only
because the event "(someone is) climbing a wall" is present, so I can
point to it.

Unlike English "that", it is not at all clear that {ta} can be used to
refer to something not present but only being talked about. The
general understanding has been that {ti}, {ta}, {tu} can only be used to
refer to things you can point to in the here-and-now. You can say that
these things were in the past in some relationship or other, but they
have to be present at the time of the utterance too, just like the referents
of {mi} and {do} have to be present.

> {se ki'ubo}. Not the first time I've made a mistake between the 'because'
> and 'therefore' versions -_-'

There are (at least) two ways to use {se ki'u}: one is to connect two
bridi, the other is to add a sumti to a bridi. In the first case, you need
{i se ki'u bo}:

     ro do zukte ko'a i se ki'u bo mi go'i
     All of you did it. Therefore, I did it.

Both {i} and {bo} are required there. The other way is to add a sumti:

    ro do zukte ko'a se ki'u lo nu mi no'a
    All of you did it therefore I did too.

Or:

   mi zukte ko'a ki'u lo nu ro do no'a
   I did it because all of you did.

Notice that "everyone was doing it" and "I wanted to be popular" are
(together) reasons or motivations for why I did it, but "everyone was
doing it" is not a reason for "I wanted to be popular" nor the other
way around.

mu'o mi'e xorxes