[lojban] Re: brivla se brivla

[Arnt Richard Johansen <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On Sun, 14 Sep 2003, xah wrote:

> on reading _What is lojban_ edited by Nick Nicholas & John Cowan,
> Chapter 3. Diagrammed Summary of Lojban Grammar (comp.html), middle on
> tanru, i got confused about tanru where a conversion 'se' is placed in
> between brivla.
>
> what does it mean when se is place between brivla?

It means that you have a tanru, consisting of the first (unconverted)
brivla, which modifies the second (converted) brivla.

> i thought it is not legal but the doc says otherwise. If i say
>
>   mi sutra klama do

"I quickly come to you"

>
> with the use of se it would be
>
>   do se sutra klama mi

"You quickly come to me". Y'know, "sutra" is not a very good example here,
because both its places gloss as "quick" - the x1 is the agent who is
quick, and x2 is the action that is being performed quickly by the agent.
So let us invent another example:

1.  mi dunda jarco do =
   (one interpretation) "I show you the donator"

2.  mi se dunda jarco do =
   (one interpretation) "I show you the present"

If you want to convert the entire tanru, you need "ke" to keep the
conversion cmavo from binding closely to only one brivla:

3.  do se ke dunda jarco mi
    Has the same meaning as example 1.

Hope this helps.

-- 
Arnt Richard Johansen                                http://arj.nvg.org/
På hjul er du kjørende.