Re: [lojban] Re: {X1 selbri X2} = {X2 se selbri X1}?

["Adam D. Lopresto" <adam@pubcrawler.org>]

On Mon, 11 Apr 2005, Opi Lauma wrote:

> As I understood from previous postings, {X1 talks to
> X2} and {X2 is talked by X1} mean the same. {X1 tavla
> X2} and {X2 se tavla X1} have also the same meaning.

Yes.

> My question is whether {X1 melbi tavla X2} and {X2
> melbi se tavla X1} have also the same meaning.

Ahhh, interesting question.  Since tanru have a huge range
of meanings, I'd say it's likely that they can mean any of
the same set of things.  But I'd also guess that they
probably wouldn't get the same default meanings.

> It seams to me that according to Reference Grammar
> (http://www.lojban.org/publications/reference_grammar/chapter2.html)
> the last two sentences have different meaning. Really, the
> first one is translated as {Tom beautifully-talks to
> Mary.} and the second one is translated as {Mary is a
> beautiful-audience for Tom.}. In the last sentence
> "beautiful" is related with action of Mary, it means that
> Mary is talked by Tom and she does it beautifully.
> However, as I understood from previous postings, "to be
> talked" means "to do nothing" (even stone can be talked),
> so I cannot understand how one can do nothing beautifully?

No, I don't think the beauty is necessarily an action of
either one.  That is, either {la .tam. melbi tavla la
.meris.} or {la .meris. melbi se tavla la .tam} could
really be meaning {la .tam. tavla la .meris. lo ka melbi},
for instance (Tom talks to Mary about beauty), as well as
many other things.  So they probably can mean the same
things, though you might be quicker to guess one or the
other with a different construct.

Also, you can get the latter arrangement of sumti with the
former tanru, by using {X2 se ke melbi tavla [ke'e] X1}.
The {ke...ke'e} brackets are used for grouping inside a
tanru, so then the {se} modifies the entire tanru place
structure.

In general, I think {melbi tavla} isn't a great tanru to
ponder too deeply.  The essence of tanru is that they can
mean any number of things, as is convenient, so it's nice
to chose ones that convey your meaning succinctly.  I think
the purpose of putting {melbi tavla} in the examples was
sort of like a koan, to get people to think about "what are
the ranges of meanings this could have?", but with most
tanru it's fairly obvious what was meant.  And if not, you
can always ask for clarification ({di'u tanru fo mo} or
{ki'a} would work fine).
--
Adam Lopresto
http://cec.wustl.edu/~adam/

Eschew obfuscation!