Subject: Re: [lojban] mi cnino cmima

From: Pierre Abbat <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 7 May 2001 21:17:42 -0400

On Mon, 07 May 2001, [email-masked] wrote:
>Coi le tavla be fo la lojban. .i la greg. cmene mi .i xabju la suis. .i 
>nanla paze.

.i do se bangu le fraso ji le dotco ji le bangrtalo ji le banglromance?

>And that's about as far as I'll go in lojban this time (was most of it 
>right?). 

You should have said:
coi le tavla be fo la lojban. .i zo greg. cmene mi .i mi xabju la suis. .i mi
nanla li paze
{la greg cmene mi} means that you are your name - this is called a use-mention
confusion.
{nanla paze} is expecting a noun (we call them "sumti", which is a use in the
sentence, not a part of speech; there is no such part of speech as a noun in
Lojban; all nouns are either proper nouns (cmene) or verbs (brivla) with an
article) so if you said {nanla paze skami} that means "a boy seventeen
computers old". {li} makes a sumti out of the number.

>I've only been studying lojban for a week. I was wanting to 
>translate a children's stoy which goes something in the lines of : 
>"this is the house that jack built, this is the malt that lay in the 
>house that jack built, this is the rat that ate the malt that lay in 
>the house that jack built. etc." I got no further than the first 
>sentence. Here are various possibilities:
>
>la djak. zbasu le dinju
>
>"jack built the house" (it is a building, as jack seems to have no 
>intention of living it)
>
>le dinju co se zbasu la djak.

{dinju co se zbasu} is preceded by an article so {be} is required for
what you mean. This is a possible beginning of a sentence that states some
relation between the building that was made and Jack, for instance {le dinju co
se zbasu la djak bramau}, but it is not a complete sentence by itself.

>le dinju co se zbasu be la djak.

drani

>le zbasu be la djak dinju

That means "the building having something to do with what made Jack".

>le dinju poi la djak. zbasu (is there confusion that the house may have 
>built jack here?)

Not according to jbofi'e, but if you want to make it clear, add {ke'a} in the
appropriate place.

>le dinju poi la djak. ke'a zbasu
>
>at least two of these must mean "The house that jack built" (as a title 
>for the story). Of those that are right, which is the most appropriate?
>
>ti zbasu be la djak. dinju 
>le ti dinju poi la jack. zbasu
>ti dinju co se zbasu be la djak.
>
>Again I'm confused ; what I'm trying to say is: "this is the house that 
>jack built."

I would say {le vi dinju cu se zbasu la djak.}. Sentences with "is" often come
out completely different in Lojban.

>co'o
>greg.

That means "Bye" and you're addressing Greg.

mu'omi'e pier.