Subject: Re: [lojban] djan. melbi vecnu

From: Pierre Abbat <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 May 2001 21:37:27 -0400

On Sat, 19 May 2001, Craig wrote:
>coi
>	I'm relatively new to Lojban, so I'm probably doing something wrong. But I
>translated "John is judged beautiful by the salesman" as "djan. melbi vecnu"
>but this is also my version of "John is a beautiful-thing seller." Which is
>the correct translation of "djan. melbi vecnu" and if they both are, then
>isn't that an ambiguity in Lojban? I thought there weren't any of those. How
>do you all interpret that sentence?

"la djan. melbi vecnu" means "John is a beautiful seller" (meaning he sells
beautiful things, or sells beautifully, more likely than he is beautiful and a
seller, which would be "melbi je vecnu"). "la djan. melbi le vecnu" means "John
is beautiful to the seller". And yes, there is ambiguity in Lojban: tanru such
as "melbi vecnu" can mean any of several things, pronouns such as "ra" can have
an unclear antecedent, and if a prenex doesn't have a variable in it, it may be
unclear where in the bridi it's supposed to go. For instance of the last, "la
niu.IORK zo'u mi klama" can mean "As to New York, I went there" or "As to New
York, I came from there".

phma