Re: [lojban] conditional and hypotetical sentences

[tijlan <jbotijlan@gmail.com>]

The three examples share the following logical connection:

If A, then B.

In Lojban, this connection is commonly translated with a "conditional if", such as:

ganai A gi B

Thus:

ganai [I had wings] gi [I could fly]

ganai [you study] gi [you will learn]

ganai [you had gone to the store] gi [we wouldn't have to eat pizza tonight]

This is the consistent part. The varying part is the extent to which the described events are hypothetical. The first example is presumably the most hypothetical: not only the consequence ("I fly") but also the condition ("I have wings") itself are a supposition of a fundamentally fictional event. In Lojban, usually "da'i" is used to mark "nonfactual". Since both elements of the connection belong to a fictional framework, I would put "da'i" outside the connection construct so as to modify its whole:

da'i ganai nalci mi gi mi ka'e vofli

The past tense in the English should not be translated literally, because it's a natlang way of expressing a nonfactual idea and the idea in question has little to do with the event being of the past.

In the third example, "you had gone to the store" is a condition that's not fundamentally fictional ("you go to the store" is a factual possibility in that the entities "you" and "the store" are readily existent and the act of going is an intrinsic if not circumstantially allowed ability of "you") and limited to the past ("we don't have to eat pizza tonight" is contingent upon "you go to the store" happening in the past):

ganai do pu klama lo zarci gi mi ca lo cabycte na bai citka lo djarpiza

("na" negates all the rightward stuffs in the sentence, and "ca lo cabycte" is to describe when "bai citka lo djarpiza" wouldn't happen i.e. the object of the negation, so I put "ca lo cabycte" before "na" to save it from the negation scope.)

The second example is the most open as to when the condition is to take place: "you learn" is not contingent upon "you study" happening now or in the future. It's more axiomatic, less tense-specific (again in spite of the future tense in the English). Therefore:

ganai do tadni gi do cilre


On a stylistic note, I like to avoid repeating the same words, so I would paraphrase the above as follows:

da'i mi ganai se nalci gi ka'e vofli

do ganai tadni gi cilre

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