[lojban-beginners] Re: The lyre

[Matt Arnold <matt.mattarn@gmail.com>]

On 11/23/05, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>
I didn't read it as "You! Strain the lyre when death is coming." I
read it as "When death is coming, the lyre strains."
-epkat