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Re: [lojban] typos???
At 06:06 PM 08/26/2000 +0000, Alfred W. Tueting (Tüting) wrote:
Studying the "Red Book", every now and then I'm stumbling over pieces
of text that don't go together with my (still fragile!)
knowledge of Lojban, so I do not know whether I didn't really grasp
the issue discussed there (sometimes maybe due to the
ambiguity of the Master's language ;) - like with the /zi'o/
"problem"*) or there has occurred a misleading typo:
On page 160:
10.1) mi catlu lo mlatu poi (zo'e) zbasu ke'a lei slasi (the brackets
are *square* brackets)
If this were right (with the /zo'e/ infact elidable!), it translates
"I look at the cat that makes (made) itself from plastic"(!) So my
guess is that the brackets should be removed, right?
Remember that zo'e is filled with some value that is obvious from context
OR not important enough to specify. In this case, because "ke'a" refers to
"lo mlatu" and is just as short as "zo'e", the fact that "zo'e" is not used
means that zo'e probably does NOT refer to the cat, but rather to some
unspecified/unimportant x1 of zbasu.
Thus the better translation is "I look at the cat which (someone) made it
from plastic" or more idiomatically "I look at the cat (which is) made of
plastic". The zo'e is not grammatically required - like other bridi, the
assumption when the place before zbasu in the relative clause is omitted is
that it has the value of zo'e. Now the Book also probably says that the
normal value for that "zo'e" in x1 (whether elided or not) can be assumed
to be "ke'a", but it should also say that if "ke'a" is used elsewhere in
the relative clause, then this assumption does not necessarily remain true
(and in fact is probably false). Not having the Book in hand, I cannot
check to see if this is the case.
lojbab
--
lojbab lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org
- References:
- typos???
- From: "Alfred W. Tueting (Tüting)" <Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de>