[lojban] Re: jordis

[Martin Bays <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

* Tuesday, 2004-10-19 at 10:40 -0700 - jordi mas <jordimastrullenque@yahoo.com>:

> 
> coi maten.
> 
> ( Are long vowels not allowed in cmene? )

All vowels are long in Lojban, except {y}. But {martin} is pronounced
something like "maa-r-teen" (with the 'r' pronounced in one of a number of
ways, none of which I can do right... see
http://www.lojban.org/publications/reference_grammar/chapter3.html)

> > > So my rule of thumb from now on is "never use du even when you want to
> > > assert identity, just in case".  If I mean "hey, it's my wife you're
> > > talking about!" but I have to say "hey, you are talking about my wife"
> > > to avoid asserting identity, I'm fine with that, however imprecise it
> > > is.
> > Well that's a different case - the difference here is only one of
> > emphasis.  The two sentences are logically equivalent, and it is a matter
> > of English idiom that the first emphasises the te tavla - so imho it would
> > be malglico to copy the construction to Lojban.
> 
> No, it's not a matter of _English_ idiom.

OK, then it's malrarbau! (rarbau == natlang)

> Most languages have some means to mark on the focus of a sentence -- the
> "new information", in this case "my wife". English sometimes moves the focus
> to the beginning of the sentence and turns the rest into a headless relative
> clause, "(who) you're talking about". Spanish uses mainly intonation.
> 
> How do I mark the focus in lojban?

{ba'e} is the official way to emphasize constructs. So (ignoring the "hey"):

{do tavla fi le ba'e mi speni}

Would emphasise the fact that the wife in question pertains to me. Perhaps
spelling out how she pertains would emphasise further, as would bringing her
nearer the front of the sentence:

{do fi le speni be ba'e mi ku tavla}

mu'o mi'e maten.