[lojban] Re: Translating "as"

[la klaku <jakobnybonissen@gmail.com>]

> (1) I respect you as a friend.
>
> (2) I study my dreams as symbolic imagery.
>
> (3) We kept this day as a holiday.
>
> (4) She appeared to them as a fairy this time.

I don't think we need a new word - neither a BAI nor a gismu. Of course, we could just make a word anyway without much harm.
The problem is that what you're essentially doing is relating an object by describing it with a predicate. That's essentially how all language works, so no wonder it turns up so often. "I study my dreams as symbolic imagery." could be rendered: "I work as a field of study on my experiences as a dream as symbolic imagery" (of course, the sentence hiccups, because it's clumsy what the "as" attaches to, but you get my point).
You could say that it makes explicit that it's this property and not that property which makes it relevant. In the few cases where it needs to be made explicit that it's just about relevant, I agree with Tsani that we need the hypothetical srana3.

In line with my suggestion of not inventing a one-word-every-possible-use-word, the four original sentences could be translated thus:

I respect you as a friend.
One possible translation is {mi do sinma mu'i lonu do mi pendo}. Of course, if it's used as a contrast to "I love you", then it's just a roundabout way of saying {do simlu loka pendo (jenai pampe'o) kei mi}

I study my dreams as symbolic imagery.
Either one could just use {ta'i}, or do as Tsani did, with te lanli

We kept this day as a holiday.
{zo'e za'o nalgundei fi mi'a}. It doesn't make sense to "keep days". You can keep ascribing the property of "holiday" to them, though. (Again, what "as" is doing is just putting a selbri to a sumti and saying it's relevant)

She appeared to them as a fairy this time.
{ko'a tolcanci fi ko'e ta'i lo nu se xadni lo crida}

In conclusion I think it would be bad to invent a general mechanism to ascribe selbri  in mid-bridi without specifying what it describes or how. If ambigiuty is important, use {do'e}.

klaku

-- 
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.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lojban?hl=en.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.