[lojban] Re: talsa

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@access.digex.net>]

From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@access.digex.net>


>I'm also a little confused by  "le do velcki".  Looking up 
>my gismu,

I'm not going to go through all your translations and questions, since
it seems that Jorge is doing so.  But you asked a couple of related questions
and at least in his first response, I don't think that Jorge addressed what 
it seems that you are misunderstanding.  Specifically, I am responding to the
above as well as your questions about "le pa [selbri]", as a  category
of grammatical construction.

Within a description (a sumti of the general form "LE + SELBRI" with
various other appendages), the appendages are NOT generally part of
the selbri, but operate at the sumti level.  In terms of the reference
grammar, see chapter 6, sections 6,7,9, and all of chapter 8, but
especially section 7 for "le do [selbri]".

The corresponding YACC grammmar rules are _111, and _112.

You asked in one place about "le pa broda" vs "la pamoi broda".
In the latter case, the "pamoi" has the grammar of a brivla and is thus
a modifying part of the tanru.  In "le pa broda", the "pa" is an "inner
quantifier" and enumerates the number in the set being described.  Thus the
speaker is talking about "the one sentence I have in mind".  The latter would 
indeed be "the first-sentence"  (in responding here I remembered that in
this example the "broda" was "jufra = sentence"), which as a tanru is
potentially ambiguous in meaning, but probably means the obvious "first of
some set of sentences".  With "le pa jufra", there is ONLY one sentence to
discuss.

Now looking back at the context, the speaker (Minots) was talking about
"le'i cizra smuni jufra" some set of bizarre sentences, possibly more
than one (and indeed for an English native speaker, I would expect that
using "le'i" is specifically an attempt to imply plural, because we don't
often consider "sets" with only one member.  So Minots is probably really
trying to express "one of the sentences", which would better be
"pa le jufra".  IN context when he has already referred to the sentences
using "le'i", however, this is the "obvious" interpretation of
"le pa jufra"; the other interpretation would be that he is belated trying
to say that there is only one bizarre sentence in the set, which seems
unlikely.  (The better way of specifying that he is only looking at a
singular set of bizarre sentence would be "le'i pa jufra", orsince there is
nothing particularly demanding "set" notation here, "le pa jufra" ON THE
FIRST MENTION.)

hope this clarifies not just the couple examples that confused you, but the
whole category of prepended modifiers to the sumti.  Note that in particular,
the numbers prepended to the sumti can get very complicated in interpretation
when you start dealing with "inner" and "outer" quantification and the
interaction with relative clauses, which is why I referred you to all of the
latter chapter.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab
    or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/";
    Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.


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