Robin Lee Powell wrote:The problem seems to be that people are insisting on translating "Be careful" as an imperative based on "careful". That is English idiom. I am pretty sure that not all languages express warnings in terms of "being careful".
I don't see a good way to do this as a bridi. {kajde} isn't use,
it's mention; that is, {kajde} isn't warning someone, it's talking
about someone having been warned. I don't see anything else good.
Ideas?
You can indeed use kajde, just not as an imperative. Statements about events are not necessarily in the past tense.
mi kajde do lenu ...
(which event you can mark with pu'o to warn of an impending catastrophe).
You can of course also add .e'unai at the appropriate point for emphasisWith two sentences in English, what you are warning is ambiguous.
The specific example was "Be carefull pulling on that toy; it's
going to spring back and hit you and that will hurt".
The caution statement (x3 of kajde) would be "if you pull on that toy, then it will spring back, and hit you, and you will be hurt", possibly with a nice strong attitudinal expressing (empathic)-pain on the last clause.
But some would express it as imperative "Don't pull on that toy, or else ..." in which case it is expressed as a negative imperative, perhaps with an afterthought causal connective.
lojbab
--
Bob LeChevalier lojbab@lojban.org www.lojban.org
President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "lojban" group.
To post to this group, send email to lojban@googlegroups.com.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to lojban+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.