Re: [lojban] la .alis.

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 2:07 PM, Pierre Abbat <phma@phma.optus.nu> wrote:
> On Wednesday 31 March 2010 10:30:50 Bob LeChevalier wrote:
>> Jorge Llambías wrote:
>> > As I said, using "la" for:
>> >
>> >     ...when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her...
>> >
>> > is at the very least semantically odd. (Syntactically, it is fine.)
>>
>> By English semantics it is somewhat odd.  It seems precisely to
>> represent in Lojban the choice in the English to capitalize what are
>> normally common nouns in English.  Compare "suddenly a John Smith with
>> brown hair ran past her" (would "la" be semantically odd in translating
>> that?).

That's simply not normal English, and besides it is not what the
original means. But yes, if the original meant something similar to "a
John Smith", then "la" would be perfectly fine. But it doesn't.

> .i suksa fa le nu la bi'u djan.smit. noi bunre se kerfa cu bajra zo'a .abu

But of course that is not what the original means. The original
doesn't suggest that of the many things with name "the White Rabbit",
one who happens to have pink eyes suddenly ran close by her. The noun
phrase "a White Rabbit" in that sentence is clearly not used as a
name. The capital letters are just Lewis Carrol being fancy.

In a somewhat similar vein, the typography used for the Mouse's long
tale/tail is pure visual play, don't expect any spoken cues to
correspond to that.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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