[lojban] Re: tanru

[Jorge Llambías <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On Apr 4, 2005 1:17 PM, opi_lauma <opi_lauma@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> Is this vagueness of the considered sentence are documented in
> official lojban grammar or may be it is just "projection" of the
> corresponding English translation? 

No, in this case it is vague by design. See for example:
<http://www.lojban.org/publications/reference_grammar/chapter5.html>

Actually I see no necessity to
> approve the considered vagueness on the grammatical level. I see no
> necessity to have a possibility to construct sentences with the given
> type of vagueness. From my point of view it would be better to
> postulate that (for example):
> 
> "sumti1 selbri2 selbri1 sumti2" = "lo nu sumti1 selbri1 sumti2 cu selbri2"
> It is
> "la tam. melbi tavla la meris" = "lo nu la tam tavla la meris cu melbi".

tanru are the simplest way to modify predicates, so the idea
is to make them usable with many different types of
modification. If we restrict it to one type, then we can't use
it for other common types, such as:

ta blabi xirma 
That's a white horse.

That's unlikely to be interpreted as {lo nu ta xirma cu blabi}.

In general, which tanru interpretation applies is fairly clear 
from context. When it is not clear, you need to use more words 
to make the intention more explicit.

mu'o mi'e xorxes