[lojban-beginners] the hills of Andilly which are delightful

["David Cortesi" <davecortesi@gmail.com>]

I posed a translation challenge of sorts, a quote from {la ja.jak.ruso}, and Michael  Turniansky (herinafter M. T.) almost immediately provided a complete translation. I couldn't have come close that doing that (as will become evident shortly) but hope to learn by reading & parsing Michael's. This may sometimes seem as if I am ungratefully second-guessing a guy who was trying to be helpful. Not so!  I am awed & grateful!

I should have mentioned, the English translation is mostly taken from
the Project Gutenberg text, (http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/3913) which
seems to be anonymous. A different translation by W.C. Mallory is at
(http://philosophy.eserver.org/rousseau-confessions.txt). To find the
passage under examination, search either version for "Andilly."

The first sentence was pretty easy; here's the French, English, and Lojban by M. T.

> J'ai dit qu'il y avoit loin de l'Hermitage à Eaubonne;
>     I have said it is far from The Hermitage to Eaubonne;
>          mi pu cusku sedu'u la ermitaj darno la obon


It was {sedu'u}, the-fact-of, I didn't know. This is a useful template: "I said that x-is-y" ==> {mi pu cusku sedu'u <bridi>}

(I also didn't have {darno}; I had searched the gismu list for "distance" and found nothing useful. I shoulda searched on "distan*")

The second sentence shows how quickly a simple thought raises difficulties.

> je passois par les coteaux d'Andilly qui sont charmans.
>     I went by the hills of Andilly, which are delightful;

      .i mi pu klama fo loi me la andilis cmana  noi kukte be lo ka viska

 

I could work out  {mi pu klama fo...} easily, but I stuck first on "the hills of Andilly" or,  the more common English equivalent, "the Andilly hills" -- as in "the Malvern hills," "the Rocky mountains," "the Senate Office building," "the Sears Tower." This is another useful template: how to make a label that melds a name and a predicate. M. T. alerts me to {me..me'u}. The 
ref.gram. (ch. 5) gives the example of {me lai kraisler. karce}. Given that, possibly the above should say, not

{fo loi me la andilis cmana} "via the-mass-really the-called-Andilis-hill"

but

{fo me lai andilis cmana} "via the-mass-called-Andilis hill"

Well it certainly wouldn't need two masses, I'm just saying the mass-called-Andilis might be preferable, getting the mass into the designation, better matching the English "Andillis hillS" (the French is also plural, "les couteaux")

ANYway, "which are delightful" is a perfect example of an incidental relative clause, which I find in ref.gram. ch. 8. Regarding M. T.'s {noi kukte be lo ka viska}, "which are pleasing/delightful {be}? the-really property-of vision" I'm not clear on this construct.

First I think Michael might well have stopped with {noi kukte} "which are pleasing" because that is just what the original does. Rousseau doesn't say why he finds the hills charmant, they might smell good, or be pleasantly shady... So if I could translate at all I think I would have stopped with {fo me lai Andilis cmane noi kukte}. 

But given Michael wanted to specify they were pleasing to view, I notice that {kukte} actually takes x2 as the sense being pleased. So I don't get why {be} is needed to attach the qualifier... Would this be just as valid?

>     .i mi pu klama fo me lai andilis cmana  noi kukte zu'o viska

...which are pleasing to the activity of seeing?