Oh, whatthehell. Lemme take a stab at this.
From: cbmvax!snark.thyrsus.com!cowan@uunet.UU.NET (John Cowan)
Date: Wed, 5 Jun 91 14:17:16 EDT
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.2 PL13]
pamoi xamrei ra'a lo verba
ni'o la paf. cusku lu pau mazo'o crino gi'e dandu le bitmu gi'e siclu li'u
.i la ver. cusku lu uanai mi na djuno li'u
.i la paf. cusku lu .ui lo me la clupe'as. harengus. finpe li'u
^^^
However did you get the parser to accept an 'h'?? Isn't that not part of
the Lojban alphabet? Also, not that you need to, but could you not have
said lo finpe be la clupe'as. xarengus. by the place structure of finpe? I
ask just out of curiosity.
.i la ver. cusku lu ia ri goi ko'a na crino li'u
.i la paf. cusku lu fu'i le nu ko gasnu cu rinka le nu ko'a ba crino li'u
This is a little weird in translation. It's nice in that it avoids the
silliness in the English version, ("It would if you hung it there") which I
cannot explain without sounding silly. Basically, what's nice is that you
can use the same answer for all the questions. ("[Be such that] the event
of your action causes the event of it_1's being ... ", right?)
.i la ver. cusku lu iasai ko'a ba'e na dandu le bitmu li'u
.i la paf. cusku lu fu'isai le nu ko gasnu cu rinka le nu ko'a ba dandu li'u
.i la ver. cusku lu iacai ko'a ba'e ba'e na siclu li'u
.i la paf. cusku lu fu'icai mi ba cusku lo jitfa li'u
Do you mean here: mi pu cusku lo jitfa? Otherwise it doesn't make as much
sense.
As a bonus, I'll pull out my gismu and cmavo lists and tell the alternate
ending, as I heard it. (There's a joke I often hear that when you tell a
Jew a joke, the usual response is, "Oh, I heard that one differently.
Finish your way and I'll tell you the way I heard it." I don't know why
the ethnic group given is Jews, perhaps because I and those in the
discussion are.):
la paf. cusku lu pau mazo'o crino gi'e dandu le bitmu gi'e pinxe loi litki
kliti rokci jorne gasnu li'u
[Sorry for that last tanru. It's almost certainly wrong, especially the
gasnu part. That's also unfortunate since that's what's under fire. Since
you probably can't figure it out from my maljbonau, I mean tp say "wet
cement". Don't ask why I use "liquid-clay-rock-join-causer". Probably
some scope-shortening cmavo would look nice in that. Oh, and "rock" is
referring to texture, not what's joined. Remind me to take remedial tanru.]
{ most of joke continues unaltered....}
...
.i la ver. cusku lu .iacai ko'a ba'e ba'e na pinxe loi litki kliti rokci
jorne gasnu li'u
.i la paf. cusku lu fu'icai mi pilno lo'u loi litki kliti rokci jorne gasnu
le'u le nu rinka lenu da'u nandu li'u
Hoo, boy is that bad. What's more, the pun doesn't translate. Makes you
wonder why you read my letters anyway. In English, it goesm "I just put in
the wet cement to make it hard." (get it?)
Should I have used lo'u/le'u or lu/li'u? It *is* grammatical, actually.
How 'bout the use of da'u? Should that be la'eda'u? I guess what I mean
is "the act of answering the remote-past utterance." Does that make sense?
I think da'u is better than de'u, because of all the intervening sentences.
Oh! one more question about the original post: you say pamoi xamrei ra'a
lo verba. Couldn't you use pe (or ne [or possibly po'u/no'u, they got
reassigned)? What's the difference?
I better quit. My connection is getting flaky.
coomi'e mark.