[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Questions ...
- Subject: Re: Questions ...
- From: Robin Turner <robin@bilkent.edu.tr>
- Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 16:59:26 +0300
la xorxes cusku di'e
> la robin cusku di'e
>
> >2. If there's a suitable BAI cmavo, use it. For example "the woman who is
> >going to Istanbul" would be {le ninmu seka'a la .istanbul}.
>
> That would be {le ninmu pe seka'a la .istanbul}. Otherwise, they're just
> two terms of the main bridi, not directly related one with the other.
> This is an important difference between BAIs and English prepositions.
> Prepositions work sometimes to modify nouns and sometimes to
> modify the whole phrase. BAIs by themselves always modify the bridi,
> you need {pe} to attach them to a particular sumti.
Ooops! You're dead right, it is all too easy to use BAIs (incorrectly) as
prepositions, and in forgetting the {pe} I was falling into the very trap I was
warning against i.e. making Lojban mimic English. I plead in defence of this
lapse, that it probably came about through analogy with the example in the book
{bloti teka'a la nu,IORK.} , which works because it's an observative, not a
sumti phrase. Thus, if I have understood correctly, {ninmu seka'a la
.istanbul.} is OK, meaning something like "There's a woman going to Istanbul"
(something exists such that it is a woman and it has the destination named
Istanbul).
On reflection, stages 2. and 3. of my "translation guide" should probably be
reversed i.e. first try to do it with tenses (time or space), then try a BAI
modal.
co'o mi'e robin.