[lojban-beginners] Re: The lyre

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 11/23/05, HeliodoR <exitconsole@gmail.com> wrote:
> A poem I've read - in rather free translation - starts like this:
>
> "The lyre, the lyre do strain when death is coming."
>
> where "lyre" is the subject, obviously. How can the repeated
> words be translated to Lojban without using {si}, because the
> person isn't reconsidering, and without losing its emotional
> effect.

I think technically you mean "topic" rather than "subject". The topic
is what the sentence is about, the subject is the doer of the action,
(or what is described by the predicate). In this case the subject is
"you" and "the lyre" is the object.

In Lojban, any argument can be topicalized by placing it in the
prenex. For example:

  lo jgita zo'u lo jgita gau ko trati ca lo nu lo nunmro cu jbibi'o

(Maybe {jgita} is too general for "lyre". Other suggestions?)

mu'o mi'e xorxes