Subject: More adventures of Max the Dog... pro-bridi, brevity, and tone

From: Brook Conner <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 18:50:59 -0400

So, more fun with Max.

English:

Max the dog loves to go for walks.

Big walks or little walks.

Long walks or short walks.

Walks to the park, or walks around the block.

Max loves walks.

This being a highly informal English, I'd think that the lojban
translation would be sticky, and so it appears to be. One thought I had
was to use pro-bridi.

la maks. poi gerku cu se pluka lo mu'e cadzu cei broda

.i broda lo mu'e ze'i cadzu
.i broda lo mu'e ze'a cadzu
.i broda lo mu'e ze'u cadzu

.i broda lo mu'e ve'i cadzu
.i broda lo mu'e ve'a cadzu
.i broda lo mu'e ve'u cadzu

.i broda lo mu'e vi vi'a cadzu la xabji
.i broda lo mu'e vu vi'i cadzu la panka

.i la maks. broda

This is of course repetitive as all get out. 

But when using "broda", how does one distinguish between *replacement*
of a sumti, and addition of a sumti? I.e., when I say:

.i broda lo mu'e ze'i cadzu

did I mean:

la maks. poi gerku cu se pluka lo mu'e cadzu lo mu'e ze'i cadzu

Max the dog likes to go for walks, under conditions of short walks. (Max
likes to go for walks, so long as they are short.

or did I mean:

la maks. poi gerku cu se pluka lo mu'e ze'i cadzu

Max the dog likes to go for short walks. (conditions unspecified).

Is the sumti following "broda" a replacement for x2? Or a new x3? And
how about with la xabji and la panka? How do those group? I suppose they
need grouping cmavo.....

Note, too, the three categories compared to the english two - it seemed
more "lojbanic" to use lojban's concept of small-medium-large built into
tenses than to stick with the literal English adjectives (which, like
much of English, are very dualistic - one or the other).

So let's use some logical connectives among the tenses.

la maks. poi gerku cu se pluka lo mu'e cadzu cei broda

.i broda lo mu'e ze'i ja ze'a ja ze'u cadzu
.i broda lo mu'e ve'i ja ve'a ja ve'u cadzu

It seems however, that you can't get rid of the repetition of "lo mu'e"
and "cadzu". Am I right? Or did I miss something? Is there some kind of
"pro-cmavo" for "broda" where you mark what will be substituted or what
you are substituting?

More later....

Brook