[lojban] Re: le gusta co minde mutce

[Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>]

On Saturday 08 November 2008 04:22:48 tijlan wrote:
> 2008/11/8 Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu>
>
> > On Sunday 26 October 2008 11:35:57 tijlan wrote:
> > > no sai zo'e ga'i vi cipni jonai vlilydanlu
> >
> > "zo'e ga'i", IIRR, means that the speaker feels haughtiness toward zo'e,
> > which
> > doesn't make much sense.
>
> Oh, it seems I got it wrong all the way. This "zo'e" should be an object of
> the speaker's contempt. On the contrary, the first message on the first
> door, which I started with "doi ro do ga'i", should reflect the honorific
> speech. So "zo'e ga'inai" is the right one?

I'm not sure which way "ga'i" goes, but it seems strange to honor or contempt 
a word that's just a placeholder.

> Originally "kemono", it should translate to something like "beast" in
> English. It's meant to be a contrast to "cipni" in fierceness. The speaker
> is emphasizing the absence of objects to hunt by referring to a wide range
> from "birds" to "beasts". A deer can be somewhere between the two
> polarities.

Hmm, there are vlilycpi also, such as eagles and shrikes. I'm not sure what 
word to use for "kemono", but "bi'i' may make sense between them.

> Originally "kao-iro" ("face-colour"), it's based on the idea that faces are
> expressive of psychological climate.

I think that's a good one.

> "Yama-dori" ("mountain-bird"), or "copper pheasant" (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_Pheasant). I wanted to avoid using
> "cipni", which is too general while "copper phesant" is specific enough,
> and which might cause a confusion with the earlier "cipni", the one the
> guys are looking for in the mountain.
>
> Any suggestion?

"ma'arjipci" is good. Could you check how wide a taxon it should refer to 
(just the Copper Pheasant, or the genus, or any pheasant) and add it to 
jbovlaste? I'll do the same with "fi'orxruki", which I made up many moons 
ago.

> > ni'i ma fe'eso'iroi vorme
> >
> > "ni'i" means a logical reason. One of the other whys probably would make
> > more
> > sense.
>
> The speaker is not questioning a specific why. And, in my opinion, "ni'i"
> is a generic one, encompassing the other whys, like "nu" is to the other
> NUs. The sentence can be rephrased as:
>
> ma nibli lo nu fe'eso'iroi vorme
>
> This "ma" can be answered by either "krinu" or "mukti" or "rinka" or "se
> jalge", depending on what it actually turns out to be.

I agree with xorxes that "ki'u" is the most general. I'd like to hear a 
Russian's opinion though. Russian has three words for "why".

> Is "sa'a" within "lu ... li'u" considered to be an actual part of the
> quoted utterance? I think not. If something can be skipped over like that,
> so should "sa'ei" be too, shouldn't it? And it's an experimental cmavo;
> what may be obvious to humans may not already be so to jbofi'e.

"sa'a" marks the previous word as not being part of the quoted 
utterance; "sa'ei" marks the next word as being an ideophone. You could 
say "sa'ei sa'a niaaon.kuaan.gorgor", but that sounds like the dog uttered an 
ideophone and forgot to mark it as such. The dog was just making noises. So I 
think that dropping "sa'a" is better. In the sentences that are bare quotes, 
without "le co'e cu cusku", "sa'ei" should be left in.

phma


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