Subject: [lojban] sei

From: Rob Speer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 5 Jun 2001 18:17:58 -0400

On Tue, Jun 05, 2001 at 02:29:34PM -0700, Robin Lee Powell wrote:
> On Sat, Jun 02, 2001 at 03:10:27AM +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote:
> > i lu ki'u ma do'o te cmene ra lu ractu canmi'a li'u va'o le nu ra na
> > ractu sei la alis te preti li'u
> 
> How does that work? Shouldn't "la alis te preti" be outside the
> lu...li'u?

I was going to ask that myself. The style of dialogue used in Alice seems to
involve "sei", which appears to be used to back out of a quotation temporarily.
I find that exceedingly odd. Nobody said "ki'u ma do'o te ra lu ractu canmi'a
li'u va'o le nu ra na ractu sei la alis te preti", yet it is quoted, and what
Alice said, "ki'u ma do'o te cmene ra lu ractu canmi'a li'u va'o le nu ra na
ractu", isn't quoted.

Another thing I can't figure out is where the effect of {sei} ends.

`Ahem!' said the Mouse with an important air, `are you all ready?
i lu ta'a sei la smacu cu vajni simlu cusku xu ro do bredi

How can you tell that 'cusku' is outside of the quote while 'xu' is in it?

Does the Book describe using {sei} like this?

A style of dialogue I've seen in other parts of Alice (I know stylistic issues
are supposed to wait until the end, but this is a huge difference) does the
obvious thing and uses lu...li'u as the x2 of {cusku} or the x1 of {preti} or
something of the sort. If the text needs to be interrupted in the middle, it
uses {fa} to return to the place containing the quote.

`What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly. `Explain yourself!'
lu ma smuni di'u li'u se cusku .o'onairu'edai ga'idai le ciftoldi fa lu
ko ko ciksi li'u

-- 
Rob Speer