Subject: Broken Phone, round 2

From: Rob Speer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 02:24:53 -0400

I'll give my interpretation of parts of the Round 2 results here.

Preface:
Evgenii: to'i ko'a goi lo ninmu .i ko'u goi lo nanmu toi
Me (Rob): fo'a goi le ninmu .i ko'u goi le nanmu

It's interesting that both of us used this tactic to introduce the
pronouns, with several translations without it in between. Some people
relied on the "ko'V = male, fo'V = female" convention, or perhaps it was
only left to context that "Flora" is probably female.

Original: She shuddered with terror.
Craig: ko'a desku le se terpa
Pierre: Elle frissonne de peur.
Evgenii: ko'a desku seci'o le nu terpa
And: fo'e noi ninmu cu desku loi nu terpa fa le no'a
Jorge: Ella tiembla de miedo.
Rob: fo'a desku le nu terpa
Greg: She shook with fear.
Arnt: le ninmu cu terpa desku
Nora: The woman trembled with fear.

We got off to a good start - the meaning survived intact. I think that
{le se terpa} and {le nu terpa} are both equally good causes of shaking.
Evgenii managed to make good use of a modal I've never seen before. And
was rather verbose.

Original: I say, beware of me, if you keep not the condition I have
proposed.
Craig: ku'i e'u mi se terpa va'o lenu do na gasnu da poi se cpedu mi
Pierre: Mais si vous ne fai^tes pas ce que je demande, qu'on ait peur
de moi!
Evgenii: ku'i fau le nu do na zukte le minde se cpedu be mi kei ko
terpa tu'a mi
And: ro ba'oi tu'odu'u ge na se gasnu do gi te se minde mi kei do mi
terpa
Jorge: Si no hace lo que le ordeno, me temera'.
Rob: ganai do na zukte le te minde be do bei mi gi mi ba terpa
Greg: If you don't do what I told you, I will be afraid.
Arnt: ga do ba tinbe fi mi gi mi ba terpa
Nora: If you don't obey me, I will be scared.

The reversal of the meaning of this sentence is my fault; I mixed up
subject and object.

Here the many different "if" styles come into play. Craig uses {va'o}.
Evgenii uses {fau}, which appears rather quaint to me. And used {ba'oi},
{tu'odu'u}, and {ge...gi} all in a row (the first two I feel to be
solutions looking for problems), yet Jorge understood him perfectly, and
even gave a translation which resulted in me putting back {zukte}. I was
considering using {ga...gi} which was the simplest logical form of this
idea, but chickened out with the double negative {ganai do na}, fearing
that the result would otherwise be translated with "or". Arnt did use
{ga...gi}, and Nora did in fact use "if".

Original: "The vampyre!" said Flora.
Craig: lo'u po'u le morsrvampiro .oi.iisai le'u se cusku la flor.
Pierre: <<Ce - euh - ce vampire! Ai"e!>> dit Flore.
Evgenii: la flor. cusku lu .iisai le malmi'o ke ciblu pinxe crida li'u
And: la flor terpa cusku lu le bi'u nai ge malmisno gi ciblu zei pinxe
li'u
Jorge: --El infame bebedor de sangre --dice Flor con temor.
Rob: lu le malmi'o voi pinxe loi ciblu sei la flor .iidai cusku
Greg: "The damned famous, those vampires" said Flo fearfully
Arnt: lu le seldapma misno .i le tu cridrvampiri li'u se terpa cusku la
flos.
Nora: "The accursed celebrity. The vampire of the remote," Flo said
fearfully.

Wow, we sure read a lot into two words.

I believe that, in spoken Lojban, people will not say attitudinals if
they are quite obviously expressing that attitude. Flora is afraid
enough that I doubt she'd bother to say ".oi.iisai", which Craig had
inside the quote. And eventually brought this to the outside of the
quote.

Evgenii seems to rather like tanru. I do too, but I think the word
"vampire" is one of the instances where they fail. This probably led to
the excessive description.

And took the description and made it rather verbose, and Jorge then
condensed it down to five words. I experimented with {voi} and am not
quite sure I got it right. Greg made up his own interpretation of
{malmi'o}. The word "those" also came from somewhere; perhaps it was
from my use of {tu} earlier, and he supposed the vampires were in the
same place. Arnt figured out what we were talking about, and came full
circle to {cridrvampiri}. Nora's translation back into English
illustrates the absurdity of our descriptions, yet miraculously contains
the original two words.

Flora -> Flor -> Flo, at least, wasn't nearly as messy as Lir -> Evil Eye.

Original: There was a sudden crash of broken glass, and then all was
still.
Craig: sa'ei krac. se porpi le blaci .ija'e roda cu smaji
Pierre: Crac! casse le verre. Donc tout se tait.
Evgenii: zoi gy. krak gy. cu sance le nu le blaci kabri cu porpi
And: sa'ei krak porpi fa le kabri i ku'i no da co'a vi sance
Jorge: Crac, se rompe una copa, pero no hay sonido alguno.
Rob: sa'ei .krak. se porpi lo kabri .i ku'i noda sance
Greg: Crack. Pieces of cup. But then there was no sound.
Arnt: bikla sance .i kabri spisa .i ku'i babo na'e sance
Nora: Crack! Cup pieces. But then, silence.

So 3 out of 5 of us keep track of the experimental cmavo page of the
Wiki.

Craig's {ija'e} seems a bit odd; a crash of broken glass does not result
in silence in my mind. For a while after that, we didn't even bother
with cause and effect. Greg at last restores the temporal order.

The glass (material) becomes a {blaci kabri} and then just a {kabri}.
Blame English.

Greg illustrates why not to put absolute faith in jbofihe's gloss;
"Pieces of cup" is an observative and might come from {se porpi be lo
kabri}, but not {se porpi lo kabri}.

That's all for my analysis. Someone else feel free to look at the other
sentences.

-- 
la rab.spir
noi pinxe loi ciblu