On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 6:40 AM, Remo Dentato <
rdentato@gmail.com> wrote:
> After having read CLL 14 many times, I'm still very confused on Lojban
> connectives.
>
> Specifically I don't get how I can consistenly translate hypotetical
> and conditional sentences.
connectives. In English, "if" is a subordinating conjunction, not a
coordinating conjunction, so you should not expect it to be translated
with a connective anyway. (There is a marginal use of "if" that can be
sort of reproduced with a connective, but that's a marginal use of
"if", not its main use, and you should not start with that.)
> For example:
> "If I had wings, I could fly"
va'o lo nu da'i mi se nalci kei mi kakne lo nu vofli
"da'i" marks my having wings as a hypothetical situation.
> "If you study, you will learn"
va'o lo nu do tadni kei do ba cilre
> And also more complicated (with tenses)
>
> "If you had gone to the store, we wouln't have to eat pizza tonight"
va'o lo nu da'i do pu klama lo zarci kei mi'o na bilga lo nu citka
lo pitnanba ca lo cabnicte
> It seems to me that {nu'o} and {pu'i} should play a role here but I
> could not tell why!
I don't think I have ever found a good use for "nu'o" and "pu'i" yet.
They are a strange mix of "ka'e" and "pu(nai)", but Lojban generally
keeps modality and tense separate, so having these two words that mix
them together is odd.
> Anyone could shed a light on this? Or direct me to material I can look at?
There have been hundreds of discussions about how to deal with "if"
that you could find in the archives, but I don't know of any
especially enlightening one.
mu'o mi'e xorxes