response to Mark Shoulson 11/30/91 - Aphorism

[Logical Language Group <cbmvax!uunet!GREBYN.COM!pucc.PRINCETON.EDU!lojbab>]

Mark writes:
>I worked out the meaning of John's algorithm early on, but it did me no
>good at all, having never heard the English version before And posted
>it:
>
>> paunai     ca     le nu       ge      la .adam. kakpa gi
>no-question  during the-event:  both:   Adam      digs  and
>
>> la .evas. cilta zbasu kei            ma       nolpre
>  Eve       thread make (close-event)  who/what noble-person
>
>I *still* don't understand what it means, but I can clear up things that
>And marked as troublesome:

This is an example of why aphorisms make poor translation targets, unless
you are also supplying the cultural context in the Lojban.  Thus I would,
if pedantically, say:

ca lenu ge lo pa nanmu po'u la .adam cu kakpa nalno'i gi lo pa ninmu
po'u la .evas. cilta zbasu nalno'i kei ma .ianai nolpre


When the one man, Adam, unnobly digs, and the one woman, Eve, unnobly
makes thread, who (I doubt if any) is noble?

>I'm not positive about this sentence.  As I understand it, "ge" conjoins
>bridi-tails, which must start with *selbri*, no leading sumti.  John,
>wanna check on that?  Did I miss something?  These bridi have leading
>sumti.

ge connectives can join sumti, bridi-tails, AND sentences.  The grammar
can tell these appart within the constraints of LALR!.  But you have to
have both sides match.  Thus you cannot join a sentence with a leading
sumti to an observative, which grammatically is a 'bridi-tail' - a
predicate with trailing sumti.

>This leads me on to a tangent.  "ca" is used to denote "when", right?
>(broadly speaking).  So "ca le nu mi tavla do kei do cliva" (at-time
>event:  I talk-to you [close-event], you leave) "when I spoke to you,
>you left" (giving a past tense here because it makes a little more
>sense).  This seems okay, but now with the new "jai" conversion, it's
>tempting to demand:  "ca le jai ca tavla be fa mi bei do do cliva"
>(at-time time-of talk [by] me [to] you, you leave) for the same meaning.
>Not that I necessarily think this is necessary, but suddenly it seems
>that it might make sense.  Doesn anyone else notice this?

It is "be do bei fai mi", not "fa mi".  "jaica" switches the nonspecific
tagged place with the x1 place, putting the time in the x1, and the "mi"
in the unspecific "fai"-tagged place.

In principle, you may be correct, but I don't think the expansion
conveys any more information than And's use of explict "be" and "bei"
and "fa" on every single place does.  It is so basic to Lojban to
undersatnd what it means to be 'ca lenu broda' (simultaneous with an
event) that a long derivation will help not at all.  The perfective
tenses are not especially malleable by Marks' manipulation.

lojbab