Subject: RE: [lojban] taiku ?

From: "Craig" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 20:44:53 -0400

>> > So, say we have a bunch of story text, followed by:
>> >
>> > no'i taiku mi klama
>> >
>> > Apparently the colloquial translation is something like:
>> >
>> > "And so, I went.".
>> >
>> > This makes absolutely *no* sense to me. Really. None at all.
>>
>> I think it means, "And, like, I went", on the assumption that
free-standing
>> "like" in English sentences can be translated by "tai" ("as a form of
>> something-unspecified).

>I would translate "And so, I went" as ".isemu'ibo mi klama" or ".i mu'iku
mi
>klama", perhaps substituting one of the other becauses as appropriate.
"taiku
>mi klama" means "In that manner I went", or something like that.
Freestanding
>"like" I don't know how to translate; I'm not even sure what it means. My
>best guess is that it just means "y".

As a member of the generation that uses this like:
It is not actually freestanding - a grammar has evolved of when it is and is
not used. This is fairly permissive, but there exist contexts where a like
cannot be inserted. As for the translation, it is not like "y" because it
does not always imply any kind of hesitation (we still use um). When it
appears at the beginning of a sentence, it tends to indicate that the
sentence is simply an example of a larger point. Otherwise, it is more
likely to show up when recounting events which the speaker has merely heard
about: "I like, went to the store" would be unlikely (though not unheard
of), whereas "He/she like, went to the store" would not.