Subject: Auxlang sentences and lujvo

From: "G. Dyke" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001 19:35:15 +0100

> >2. This drink is for children.
>
> **What *does* this sentence mean

xod:

I think it means le'e pinxe be ti cu verba

** zo le'e ki'a .iku'i.ui lo'u cu verba le'u zo'o

lei cmamlatu pu kelci ca'o le donri vi'a le solgu'i

**No, lei would mean that they were playing together, which the english does
not say, I stick with le

> >4. There is a group of large trees in my garden.
> >6. "Do you remember exactly what you said?"
>
> xu do morji le se cusku ba'ucu'i be do .. I think there is better, but I
> haven't quite understood all the du'u sedu'u et al.

How about

xu do satci morji le do pu selsku

**nooop you can either remember or not, the satci must qualify what is
remembered (but then w/ what I just said, I must conclude that no semantic
abiguity results from your sentence : it's ok)

Jay

I was thinking {xu do morji co satci da poi fa do cusku} makes for a nice
(non-concise) translation.

**morji co satci is good

Lee:

Seems like an interesting exercise.

1. The big house was full of books.

Don't see much interesting here:
*{le barda zdadi'u pu culno lo xelcku}

**loi... they must be mighty books if the house is full of each of them...

*{ti verba selpinxe},

*ie

3. The little cats played all day in the sun.

I think the idiom "sun play" is natural here
too, since it really specifies a kind of play
rather that simply saying that they were playing
under the sun (which doesn't really say anything):

**quite where else *could* they be playing

*{le cmalu mlatu pu solri kelci ze'e le djedi}

** djedi certainly isn't correct, being a full day, maybe ca'o le soldei

5. They will soon bring us fresher cakes and
maybe warm milk.

*{tu bazi bevri fi ma'a fe lo vifmau titynanba
.e ju'o lo glare ladru}

**any reason for following the english word-order?, ju'o is certainty, try
ju'ocu'i

Rob:

What possible justification is there to coin a lujvo for "is a drink for
children"? Is there some highly specific place structure you hope to get
out of it? If not, what's wrong with {verba se pinxe}, which is not only
easier to read but _shorter_?

**.ie The only reason is that it was shorter originally...

--
la rab.spir
noi na sarji le nu duskemjvozba
gi'e na ka'e bacru zo duskemjvozba

**I don't either but I have no difficulty pronouncing it

Craig:

>> * Create a lujvo because you need to, not because you can. This would
>> probably arise from wanting a short word to express a common concept,
>> needing a specific place structure that only a lujvo could give you,
>> or possibly needing to express something where only a single word will
>> fit.

>I have come around to thinking that fluent speakers, who knew all the
>rafsi would systematically compress nonce tanru into lujvo. I find myself
>doing this with the few rafsi I know.

I disagree. A fluent speaker would know the difference in meaning between
the tanru and the lujvo. The lujvo would have a precise meaning and place
structure, generally given by the seljvajvo rules. The tanru would be a
beautifully vague but extremely expressive means of expressing an open-ended
or somewhat atypical idea. Rather than looking for the exact right word to
use, I expect a native lojbanistani to produce a long stream of gismu which
together express their idea in an almsot poetic way.

**I have come to the conclusion that lujvo place structures na ka'e se
glorkena I also believe that my usage at any rate will compress any tanru I
happen to know the rafsi of into a tanru. lujvo seem mainly to get used with
a gadri in front.

**I would like to defend my recent lujvo's by saying that I wanted to beat
the hell out of esperanto on *their* ground (they loose hands down on ours)

>Please try to create meaningful subject headers.

**sorry (It's rather ironic, I can't stand "digest 2093" or "two questions"
either)

Greg