Re: [lojban] Re: On not using du for is

["And Rosta" <a.rosta@lycos.co.uk>]

ctefan:
> la rork. pu cusku di'e:
> > Now my question is how would I best express "ti du le mamta pe mi"
> > without the "du"?
>
> You might use:
>
> ti poi mamta cu srana mi
>
> There is a little difference, but in cases where this expression is
possible
> it seems more lojbanic to me.

I would hope that the more lojbanic option is simply to ensure that one's
sentences do actually mean what one intends them to communicate.

"ti poi mamta cu srana mi" means "Those, out of these-here things, that
are mothers pertain to me". That is, "ti poi mamta" refers to the
portion of ti that is a mamta. A closer but still inexact translation
of "ti du le mamta pe mi" would be "ti no'u le mamta mi srana" or
"le mamta ku no'u ti srana mi".

However, to the extent that "ti mamta mi" and "ti du le mamta be mi"
are very loosely equivalent, so "ti du le mamta pe mi" would have
the same sort of loose equivalence to "ti mamta (se)ra'a mi".

(N.B. I do not dispute that English "This is my mother" is best
translated as "ti mi mamta" or even just "mamta mi", if the mother
is gesturally indicated.)

--And.