Subject: Re: [lojban] nolraitru

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 08:43:45 -0400 (EDT)

Newton, Philip scripsit:
> 
> How would you expand "nolraitru" (meaning "king") into a tanru?
> 
> The obvious "nobli traji turni" doesn't make sense to me, since that is
> "(nobli traji) turni", i.e. "(noble type-of superlative) type-of governor".

That's exactly what it means: among all noble (=high-ranking by birth)
governors, the king is the noblest. It's also true that he is the
highest *governor* apart from his nobility, so nolkemraitru would also
be a reasonable lujvo for the concept.

> I would have expected either "nobli ke traji turni" = "nobli (traji turni)"
> = "noble type-of (superlative type-of governor)" or "traji nobli turni" =
> "(traji nobli) turni" = "(superlative type-of noble) type-of governor".

Still, it's not clear that the default scale for governorship is
that of hierarchical rank: the governor-est person might be the one
who governs the best rather than the most.

> (Incidentally, is it possible to express "traji nobli turni" with the word
> order "nobli traji turni" by using cmavo? I tried "nobli co traji turni",
> intending "(nobli co traji) turni" but the co attached not the "traji" but
> the whole "traji turni" to the "nobli". And "ke nobli co traji ke'e turni"
> was rejected by jbofi'e as ungrammatical.)

No, "co" is always longest scope because of its effects on trailing
places. See The Book.

-- 
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan [email-masked]
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are
no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that
they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. --The Hobbit