[lojban] Re: Test sentences

[Jorge "Llambías" <jjllambias2000@yahoo.com.ar>]

--- Pierre Abbat wrote:
> On Saturday 24 July 2004 19:57, Jorge "Llambías" wrote:
> > 11. The lord of the elves will cross the sea only if the lord of Mordor is
> > defeated.
> >    le nobli be lo elfe ba pagre le xamsi ijo le nobli be la mordor
> >    cu se jinga
> 
> ijo sisi inaja. {jo} means "if and only if".

Yes, but I find the English ambiguous here. (In many of the sentences
there were ambiguities. I tried to translate what I considered the
most likely meaning.) Would 11. really be true if the lord of Mordor
is defeated and the lord of the elves won't cross the sea after all? 
I think "if and only if" is just not idiomatic in English.

In any case, I think both {inaja} and {ijo} are lacking something:
which way the causal link. The English does not suggest that
the lord of Mordor can be defeated simply by the lord of the elves
crossing the sea, does it? The English really seems to be saying that 
the lord of Mordor not being defeated´prevents the lord of the elves 
from crossing the sea.  

> > 14. The woman Argyle hoped to marry was the woman the man she hoped to
> > marry hoped to marry.
> >   le ninmu poi la argail pacna lo nu speni cu du da poi le nanmu poi
> >   da pacna lo nu speni cu pacna lo nu speni
> 
> I don't understand the English. Is Argyle a man or a woman?

I assumed Argyle is male (that would be a pretty safe assumption from the
context, I think, at least until gay marriage is more established).

> Does "she" refer 
> to Argyle or to someone from a previous sentence? 

"She" is the only woman mentioned, since "the woman" refers both times
to the same person. In another context, I suppose it could refer to
someone mentioned in a previous sentence, but with the sentence as given
I don't see how that could be. 

> Did Argyle become someone's spouse or officiate at the marriage?

What's the more likely interpretation?

Usually, any sentence can be given many different interpretations.
When translating into another language it is almost impossible to
keep all the same possible interpretations in the translation, so
we have to pick the most likely one. I thought the English in this
case was pretty clear. The Lojban is a bit tricky if you want to fill
the {ke'a}s in explicitly, because of the embedded {poi}s. I started
doing it, but then I realized I would need {ke'a xi pa}, {ke'a xi re}, 
and I didn't remember the convention. Is {ke'a xi pa} the innermost 
or the outermost?

mu'o mi'e xorxes


		
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