[lojban-beginners] Re: Confusion with Lojban For Beginners

["Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

Interesting. I count five different interpretations so far. Giving directions
in Lojban is sure going to be fun. :)

  la .iulias. pritu la mari,as. la klaudias.

1) Julia is facing Claudia.
2) Maria is facing Claudia.
3) Julia is to the right of Maria from Claudia's point of view.
4) An observer facing Claudia (but standing where?) would see Julia
   to the right of Maria.
5) If Maria (or better someone standing where she is) were to face
   Claudia, Julia would be on her (Maria's) right.

Now, I think we can discard 1 and 2 immediately because we want to
be able to use {pritu} to talk about things that don't face anywhere.
"The red ball is to the right of the blue ball". So which way are x1
and x2 facing should be irrelevant, no matter what the English glosses
suggest.

We can discard 4 because it is ambiguous. Depending on where you place
the observer you can always make them see Julia to the right of Maria,
so the claim would be empty.

That leaves 3 and 5 as contenders, unfortunately, they often give opposite
results.

The definition as stated suggests 5, but 3 is better, because 5
is ambiguous in situations where there is no up and down defined.

Also, 3 is the most natural:
{la iulias pritu la mari,as} =(usually) {la iulias pritu la mari,as mi}
{la iulias pritu la mari,as ri} = Julia is on Maria's right hand side.
{la iulias pritu la mari,as la klaudias} = Julia is to the right of Maria
from Claudia's point of view.

So, I would agree with Pierre and Jim's third option (although some
of the other options can be defended based on the wording of the
definition).

mu'o mi'e xorxes