Re: [lojban] I almost caught the train

[pycyn@aol.com]

In a message dated 3/12/2001 12:15:06 PM Central Standard Time,
xod@sixgirls.org writes:

<mi stidi jinvi le du'u di'u mupli le malglico be le'a le ka mapti le glico
tcaci .i ca'a fanva lu mi pu'o snada tu'a le trene li'u goi ko'a fu zoi
gy. I almost caught the train .gy ta'i le pu'u pa le valsi cu mapti pa le
valsi .i ku'i xu va'o le za'i lojbo pensi kei ko'a nibli le za'i na klama
fu le trene .i mi jinvi le ka jitfa

li 10 ckupau zo'u

10.1)   mi pu'o damba
       I [inchoative] fight.
       I'm on the verge of fighting.

.i za'a no da poi me di'u ku'o cu nibli le du'u na bazi damba .i da'o no'i
no da poi na glico ku'o cu nibli le mu'e fliba tu'a le trene .i jinvi le
du'u le selfi'i be fo lu je nai li'u cu sarcu>

Well, I didn't say it was entailed, only that it was implicated (else why
bring in Grice, who is not a good houseguest).  Nor did I say that what was
implicated was that the speaker did not come by train, just not by that
train.  Of course, the implicature requires the context that makes this a
past occurrence, I suppose, and. in that case, even {mi pu'o damba} suggests
-- in the absence of a correlated event, that the battle did not take place.  
I take the word-for -word translation to be accidental and not a sign of
malgliconess, since the words do not *translate* one for one (and {tu'a}
doesn't at all)

In passing {cu'u le panomoi ckupau} is more nearly grammatical for what you
want than "as for the number 10 is a chapter"
Was {je nai} really the inspiration for pi,er's original sentence?