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[lojban-beginners] Re: Possesives in lojban



> There is an exercise on possessives, convert "pe" to nested form

>   le cukta pe le ninmu -->


This one is a sumti (argument for a bridi), modified with {pe}. You need to convert it to a possessive sumti. This topic is covered in Chapter 8, section 7 of the Complete Lojban Language.


It says:


Although any sumti, however complex, can appear in a full-fledged relative phrase, only simple sumti can appear as possessor sumti, without a ``pe''. Roughly speaking, the legal possessor sumti are: pro-sumti, quotations, names and descriptions, and numbers. In addition, the possessor sumti may not be preceded by a quantifier, as such a form would be interpreted as the unusual ``descriptor + quantifier + sumti'' type of description. All these sumti forms are explained in full in Chapter 6.


In the phrase {le cukta pe le ninmu} {le ninmu} is the possessor without elidable terminator {ku}. {le ninmu ku} is a description in its full form, so, being a simple sumti, it is allowed to be inserted between the gadri ({le}) and the selbri ({cukta}).


> I offered:

>   le le ninmu cu cukta

> Is it wrong? Answers page says "You can't do this (for now): le le ninmu

> cukta is ambiguous.". But how about "cu"?


This one is grammatically incorrect. Without the first preceding 'le' it is

  le ninmu cu cukta

which is a bridi (ready relation), not a sumti (argument for it).

You then add le. But le may be added to selbri, not bridi to form a description sumti.


The correct answer is, of course,


{le le ninmu ku cukta}


In this sumti, {le ninmu ku} is an internal description sumti acting as a possessor.


Without {ku},


{le le ninmu cukta},


this phrase is not 'abmiguous', but simply incorrect.

{ninmu cukta} is a tanru type of selbri.

The first {le} attached to this selbri creates a description sumti {le ninmu cukta}.

But the second outer le runs the whole text to crash, because it is not possible to attach {le} to sumti without anything else.


Yanis Batura