Subject: Re: [lojban] LogFest Phone Game results

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2002 16:34:15 EDT

In a message dated 8/1/2002 12:54:31 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

<<
> Creatures four-legged and two play along the river.
> loi danlu noi remei najo vomei tuple ke'a ku'o cu kelci vu'u lo rirxe
> Animals with 2 or 4 legs play near the river.
> loi danlu poi se tuple re da .e vo da cu kelci vi le rirxe
> The animals which are both two-legged and four-legged play near the river.
> Le danlu ne li reboi .e li voboi tuple cu kelci jibni le rirxe

1) The first just needs {vu'u} changed to {vi'i}. 
The {ku'o} is unnecessary with {cu}. {najo} seems unecessarily strong; {a} 
is, as usual, enough. {se tuple} saves the {ke'a} as well. The {noi} should 
probably be {poi}.

2) is fine as it stands -- grammatically. The {e} should be {a}. I'm not 
sure whether the difference between {vi} and {vi'i} is significant. The 
second {da} should be {de}.

3) Where to start? The {boi} closes off the {re} but not the {li re}, so the 
parser stops at {e} which can only come between sumti, not quantifiers ( 
between {li re} and something, but not {re} alone). And then the number 
expression has to be stopped, so, for the {e} to work the first bit has to be 
{li re lo'o}. But then {e li vo} is enough for the second bit. That ends the 
scope of {ne}, which is the non-restrictive form of {pe}, so takes sumti, 
not bridi. The parser now stalls at {cu}, since it has just taken {tuple} as 
the "main verb:" "Animals, which are somehow related to the numbers 2 and 4, 
are legs." To get closer, the {ne} has to be {noi}. Now, at least the 
numbers are the legs, and the animals are playfully near the river (I would 
have said -- if I had all the time I have now and was as awake as I am now -- 
{kelci co jibni} but that is highly disputable.), though what these odd 
(actually, both even) legs have to do with the animals is not clear. 

<<

> You can't want what you don't see.
> do na kakne djica le na kakne viska
> You cannot want what you cannot see.
> do na'e ka'e djica le nalselcatlu be do
> You can't want yourself not to be looked at. (Ao-?!@%)
> do na ka'e djica le nu do na se catlu
> You can't want to not be seen.

These all parse, but semantically fare less well:
1) You are not a possible wisher for the impossible seer (one who sees the 
impossible?, something that cannot possibly be a seer?, something that cannot 
see the possible?) Miraculously, the next person got it (something about 
Gricean theory come to hand here)
2) You other-than-can wish for what you do not observe. Not clear what is 
wrong with {na} here, but {catlu} may be better than {viska}, 
philosophically.
And 3) is fine for its English and its English fine for it.

<<

> There are two types of people: those who know how to end a sentence
> lo re prenu girzu cu lei prenu poi ka'e jufra mulno
> A couple is a pair of people who can finish one another's sentences.
> loi speni remei cu remei loi prenu poi ro cmima be ke'a ka'e cusku le fanmo 
> be lo'e jufra pe le drata.
> Married couples have nothing left to say to each other.
> lo speni remai na djuno da poi simxu cnino te tavla
> 

1) needs a verb: {cu} can't be followed immediately by a sumti. I'm not sure 
just what the form of this English should be in Lojban: we are told that 
there are two types of people, presumably an exhaustive dichotomy. Sentence 
one doesn't say there are two types, but implies it by talking about one or 
the other or both of the two groups of people. One expects it to go on 
saying what this (or these) group(s) do(es), {kae jufra mulno}, for example 
-- though {ka'e} is suspect for "knows how to." Better would have been {re 
da prenu girzu}, which has only the disadvantage of being patently false, but 
at least introduces the concept overtly. Perhaps {lei prenu girzu cu remei} 
is safest -- "the grouping I have in mind is twofold." But then what? How 
do we say "namely"? Perhaps "precisely speaking", {sa'e}, combine with a 
sentence break, will work. Then there needs to be a way to back reference 
the pair, without sitting on the joke, as {pamai}, for example, would. Maybe 
a different approach: "Everybody belongs to one of two groups, either they 
know how to finish a sentence." (The White Knight pulls this on Alice and, 
when she asks -- inevitably -- "Or what?," answers -- equally inevitably -- 
"Or else they don't, donchaknow", or words to that effect.) {ro prenu cu 
cmima pa le re girzu isa'e roda ga certu lenu mulgau lo jufra} (Amazing what 
a week of thinking about things will do for improving a trat.) This does not 
parse completely, of course, but neither does the original -- and in 
essentially the same way.

The English from 1) wanders way off (but it is not clear what sticking close 
would be), but the Lojban 2 follows it pretty well (-mei2 is strictly a set, 
not a mass, but why fuss?) except that the relative clause wants to modify 
{remei}, not {loi prenu} -- it is the members of the pairs, not of the mass 
of people, that can finish eachother's sentences. (probably, each one 
individually, {ro jufra} rather than the set all at once -- the ends of sets 
can't be said). But {remei} is not a sumti, so can't support {poi}. Thus a 
scary tanru is called for (not something for anyone to construct on the fly 
at 1 am -- or with a lot of time in the early afternoon after a good night's 
sleep). {remei be lo'i prenu be'o co se cmima lo cusku be le fanmo be ro 
jufra pe le drata} or some such.
Lojban 3 is OK except for wanting {remei} instead of {remai}.

<<
Politicians, like poor relatives, are only seen when they need help.
loi turni ne pa'a loi to'enricfu ckini cu se viska ca loi nu vo'a sidju nitcu 
kei po'o
Rulers like the poor's relatives are seen only when they need to help.
.ei se sidju le turni simlu le pindi ckini
One should be helped by the apparent rulers to achieve the poor relations.
da se sidju .ei le krici raitru leka xlali ckini
There is something that's helped by the believer king in the black 
related-thing
This group comes off better at the beginning but does wander a bit (vocab?). 
{turni} doesn't catch the flavor of "politician" -- maybe there are none like 
that in Lojbandia (not that "rulers" sounds a lot better). Parallelism seems 
too close for what is intended -- this is perhaps the only property in which 
they are similar. Something from {simsa} seems more natural (but {si'a} is 
the wrong selma'o). Nor is this similarlity incidental; it is, on one 
reading, the point of the sentence: more like {loi politicians cu simsa loi 
to'enricfu ckini le du'u ce'u se viska...}. The English that follows gets 
off on a wrong reading of the two tanru (Hey, we always say tanru are very 
ambiguous), but is otherwise OK. How that moved to Lojban 2 (but the 
official word for "poor" turns up) is hard to say, but the English picks this 
new idea up right away. L3 trips on vocab and E4 doubles it back. We'd 
expect {nu} rather than {ka} in the last sumti.

All that said, the whole is pretty impressive when compared even to a game 
played entirely in English.