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

["Turniansky, Michael [UNK]" <MICHAEL.A.TURNIANSKY@saic.com>]

Dave Cortesi:

> I posed a translation challenge of sorts, a quote from {la ja.jak.ruso}

You stuttering? ;-)

>  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 am appreciative and flattered.  And even though I've been lojbaning for about a year, I still consider myself a beginner.  I've almost finished the first pass through the complete gismu/cmavo list (only about 50 words to go)  (first pass meaning that I've been able to correctly identify a word twice in a row (in groups of about 100-150 words), with at least 24 hours passing between attempts).  I should be done with pass 1 next week, when I will go back with pass 2, to see if I've actually retained anything long term :-)



> 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>}

 Wish I could take credit for that "discovery" but in fact I was told that from this mailing list when I wanted to know how to say, "You said a moment ago that I was crazy...", a quote from the movie Frankenstein that I seen that morning

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

  I'm going to let you in on a little secret:  jbovlaste is, as you know, pretty darn difficult to search, as you can only search for whatever the chose to pick as the English gloss, despite synonyms being in the definition (for example, you would have found "distance" only as "tersei", but not "distant" at all, only "far", which in this particular case, is happily the word used in the English translation).  So I don't use it (well maybe as a third choice, or a double-checker). I use http://teddyb.org/~rlpowell/hobbies/lojban/flashcards/big_list, which I have downloaded as a flat file that I've called braste ("big list") (although I did have to add in the rafsi for those camvo that have them).  It may not be as authoritative/up-to-the-minute as jbovlaste, but it's a heckuva a lot easier to search.  I also use noralujv (the "current lujvo list" on the words list page), to find instances of words that I suspect might have been lujvized.  Again, authorative?  No.   Much easier to search than jbovlaste?  Yes. 

Of course, rereading what you wrote, I realized you weren't using jbovlaste at all, but the flat gismu file.  Oh, well... then it is your fault :-)



> 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

  Yes, although it took me some time to realize the usefulness of "me".  When I was struggling with "The Bernestain Bears and the Prize Pumpkin" I had to translate names like "Farmer Ben" and "Raffish Ralph" I ended up using the clunkier "la ben po'u lo cagypre" which really obscures the fact that "farmer" is part of his name, not just his occupation.  Had I only know about "me" at that time, I could have used the cleaner la cagypre me la ben

> {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"

  But you can't just do that.  You see, "me" converts a sumti to _selbri_ and fo must be followed by a sumti.  So you need a gadri like le/lo/la, etc. to convert it back again.  The example given in chap. 5 is "ta me lai kraisler karce" => "that _is-a-Chrysler_ type-of car".  Look  a bit furhter down at example 10.11 to see that you need another "le" to convert it to a sumti as in "loi me la kraisler karce cu xamgu" (Chrysler cars are good)

> 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") 

  It's certainly open to debate whether "la" or "lai" is better following the "me" but don't forget that all articles might be singular or plural.  I woiuld maintain that there is only a single range of Hills called Andilly, so "la" is appropriate, but since I'm referring to that named group in the aggregate, loi (or more  probably lai) is appropriate before the me. 

> 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}. 

  Yes, I considered that, and it probably would have been the right thing to do.  But since the English gloss is "delicious" and the first two words in the English definition are "delicious/tasty" I didn't want lojban beginners to think I was tasting the hills :-)

> 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... 

Actually, you are correct. I didn't need the "be", since noi takes a whole bridi as its argument.  Mine would translate as "....which is vision-delightful" (putting the vision in as part of the selbri) as opposed to without the "be", which would be "which is delightful to vision" (putting the vision is as a sumti to the sub-bridi), a distinction without really any difference .

>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?

  Well, no for two reasons:  The aforementioned need for a article before the "me", and the need for an article before "zu'o" (just like you have the English, "...THE activity of seeing"), otherwise it will "tanru-ize" with kukte.

  I like how komfo's tranlsation compares and contrasts with mine.

  I look forward to more of your questions,

                       --gejyspa
PS Has anyone else noticed that "Darfur" implies a lojbannic root of "distnat rot", which is as good a description as any? (unless of course you live in Sudan)