Re: [lojban] What place of nesting bridi {ce'u} refers to?

[Arnt Richard Johansen <arj@nvg.org>]

On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 12:56:59AM -0700, la gleki wrote:

> These examples are pretty clear. No ambiguity. Now let's open Chapter 11.4
> http://dag.github.com/cll/11/4/
> 
> 4.9)   la djan. cu zmadu la djordj. le ka mi prami ce'u
>        John exceeds George in-the property-of (I love X).
> 
> This is something very strange.
> Let's imagine that I'm a boy and I meet a girl. I tell her
> 
> {do melbi mi lo ka ce'u clani}
> 
> Does {ce'u} refer to {do} or {mi}?

Neither. {ce'u} does not refer to anything, and that's sort of the whole point. The clause refers to a “property” of being tall *in the abstract*, not that of someone in particular being tall.

* lo ka ce'u clani
  being long

* lo ka clani ce'u
  being a dimension of length

* lo ka clani fi ce'u
  being a standard of length

* lo ka mi clani
  my height

* lo ka do clani
  your height

* lo ka lo penbi cu clani
  a pen being long

* lo ka clani
  being long (OR being a dimension of length OR being a standard of length)

> There are at least two ways this sentence can be understood.
> 1. I like tall girls. She is tall. I mean "I like that you are tall". i.e. 
> {ce'u} refers to {lo melbi}.
> 2. I'm a tall boy. She is shortish. I mean "I like that you are short 
> (given that I'm tall)". i.e. {ce'u} refers to {lo se melbi}.

The definition of {melbi} is:
x₁ is beautiful/pleasant to x₂ in aspect x₃ (ka) by aesthetic standard x₄.

Although English is not my first language, I'm pretty sure that when something is beautiful in some aspect, that aspect is an aspect of that which is beautiful, not of that which perceives the beauty. So interpretation 1 is the correct one.

-- 
Arnt Richard Johansen                                http://arj.nvg.org/
Let's have some real examples from a real, non-English language.

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