[lojban] Re: tanru

[Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>]

On Fri, Mar 25, 2005 at 06:56:54PM +0300, Aleksej R. Serdyukov
wrote:
> 
> coi ro do
> 
> (I am ill now, so excuse me if I write some gibberish or act
> stupid)
> 
> "ti     [cu]    cmalu   nanla   ckule   [vau]
> This            is-a small-     boys    school.
> This is a school for small boys."
> 
> How do I know that this is not:
>
> This-thing is-small in-dimension-"boy" as-compared-with-standard
> "school"
>
> , e.g., "Boy of this thing is small by standard "school""
> ?

You don't; tanru are fuzzy.  All you know is that it's a school, and
it has something to do with boys that have something to do with
small-ness.  tanru group to the right by default, so cmalu modifies
nanlu, and cmalu nanla modifies ckule.

-Robin

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