lemi mela .AIsopos

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[I just realised the item from Colin Fine I'm replying to appeared on the
list; here is my response, and I hope it helps.]

Thank you very much for taking the time to criticise my translations, and
to do so in a pleasantly well-informed way. I found your crits most in-
structive.

>             a few comments to offer, some of which probably reflect
>             my lack of understanding.

Now let's not be overmodest here! :)

>             I notice you often use "noi" in cases where I would be
>             inclined to use tanru. eg. "lo lorxu noi xagji" as
>             opposed to "lo xagji lorxu". This is a perfectly valid
>             (and indeed more precise) form of expression - I just
>             wanted to point out the possibility, and also to wonder
>             on whether the original Greek wouldn't have used lots of
>             participles, giving a structure if not a sense closer to
>             that obtained with tanru. I notice it particularly in
>             contrast to your very elegant solution to the place
>             structures of "bacru" and "tavla": "lenu tavla be da be'o
>             bacru de" (though I can't help wondering if the places
>             are wrong, if you need to do this).

1. About my choice of {noi} rather than {poi} (Mark pointed this out): I
chose {noi} because the information {xagji} is non-identificational.
2. It was precisely the fact that the original had a participle rather than
an adjective that led me to use a relative clause. (The original has
Alwph3 limwttousa - A fox hungering - lorxu co xagji, syntactically). It
can be countersaid that there is no way "hungry" could not be expressed in
Greek other than in a participle. The 'elegance' is an imitation of Ivan
Derzhanski, though I'm sure he in turn read it somewhere else; the places
are indeed wrong, and I'm beginning to suspect that, when you tell someone
something, the appropriate bridi is actually {notci}.

>             I wonder about your use of the gadri "le", "lo" and
>             "lei".

You are probably quite right about my use of articles; I haven't quite
taken to them yet.

>              This is even clearer with the crab:
>                  "... lo canldrdanlrkandre le mamta cu se tavla ..."

What I was thinking was that, whereas the crab is indefinite (for some crab
X), the mother is restricted to being the mother of X, and does not correspond
to the "for some mother Y" template I have in mind.

>              Again, your use of "lei" suggests to me that you are
>             more or less using it for a plural:

You're right on {lei manti}; in {loi vanyjba}, I was trying to say that the
grapes themselves were considered as a mass (a bunch).

>             "lego'i" - strictly, this means "the individual(s)
>             described as satisfying the previous bridi", so for
>             example in "Fox and grapes" it doesn't mean "the fox" but
>             "the wanter to get them and not able to get". In general
>             these will be extensionally the same, but I'm a little
>             dubious about this as a general technique.

Well, I realised that, and I did get away with it on this one. A codification
of argument replication, which is what Jimc attempts, runs quickly into
shoals; but I don't find my usage here exceptionable.

>             "vimcu vo'a"?  "subtracted himself from ..."? I think
>             this is a poor choice of brivla.

Well yes, but I was following orders :) - in this case, the analogous usage
of {xruti} for "to return ["oneself"] to a place".

>             I wonder about your alternation of "naka'e cpacu" and
>             "na'eka'e xagri'a" - I can make sense of both, and I'm
>             not yet used to negation, so there may be a good reason
>             for the difference that I'm missing.

Possible, but I doubt it. My rule of thumb is that, in {na'e}, the sumti
are still related to eachother, and with {na}, they aren't necessarily.
I not-get the grapes; I not-improve my situation. The distinction I've
made is probably not really there; in any case, what I really wanted to
say, by analogy, and couldn't, by restrictive grammar, is {ka'enai}.

>             Crab and mother: I thought that the modified gismu on the
>             front of a le'avla was just to give a general semantic
>             area - it seems unwieldy and contrary to the spirit of
>             le'avla to shove two of them on there.

It is clumsy, but I ultimately want the preceding lujvo to be able to give
the place structure of the loan-word, not just restrict the semantic field.
In this case that's not really relevant.

>             "mosra" not "morsa".
>             Crow and fox:
>             I think you missed out an abstractor "noi ba'o kavbu lo
>             rectu"

I don't see what's wrong with this. Could you elucidate?

>             "...noda fau ... turni roda ..." - I'm not quite sure
>             what it means to use the same variable differently
>             quantified in the same sentence, but I have a strong
>             feeling that it is clearer to use different ones.

*Of course* I didn't think of that. Conversationally, I doubt anyone would,
but that's a matter for usage. OK, be it {rode}.

>             Tortoise and Hare:
>             Surely you mean "resprtestudine" don't you? (zo'o)

(Beats head against wall in supplicant penitence :)

>             "na'e gunka jundi" - "non-workingly attended"? I would
>             not use "gunka" here. I would prefer  "kazvajni",
>             "terzukte", "selmukti", or even "fuzme" - or just "na'e
>             jundi".

{se mukti} is nice.

>             "le se cusku cu xusra ve cusku ledu'u..." "the thing-
>             expressed assertingly-is-a-form-of-expression of the-
>             statement-that" (unless the place structure of "cusku"
>             has changed since my list). I'm not entirely sure what
>             this means, because I'm not certain of the meanings of
>             the places. Is it appropriate for the x2 to be "lu ...
>             li'u" or "la'elu ... li'u"?

I'm not convinced ambiguity is introduced by allowing both, but for...

>             Either way, a statement of the form "le se broda cu ve
>             broda" is likely to be a little suspect - I'm sure there
>             are cases where it makes sense, because it happens that
>             the same kind of thing can fill both places (though I
>             can't think of any off-hand) but the x2 and x4 of "cusku"
>             are surely very different animals?
>              It appears to me that EITHER
>                  "lo se cusku" is a piece of text, utterance etc, in
>             which case "cusku" has no place to express the meaning,
>             and you'll have to use something like "le se cusku cu
>             xusra ledu'u ..."
>             OR   "lo se cusku" is a meaning, content etc, in which
>             case you probably want "le ve cusku cu xusra ve cusku
>             ledu'u..." (and all the people who have written things
>             like "la fred. cu cusku lu ..." are wrong).

I can't decide, and will leave this to lojbab's editorialism.

>             I'm a little uncertain about comparing ("vlimau")  a "se
>             ckaji" and a "nu trocu" - aren't they rather different
>             kinds of thing? Similarly, the hare neglects the race
>             because of his 'ka sutra', while the tortoise is aware of
>             his 'ni masno' - while you can certainly make a case for
>             these different abstractors, I think you might improve
>             the parallel (zu'u) by using the same one both sides.

Actually, the source lujvo is wrong - both {se ckaji and {nu troci} are not
{vlipa}, but {se vlipa}, so it should be selvlimau, expanding to xyxipa
cu zmadu xyxire leni xyxipa fa'u xyxire cu vlipa xyxici .
ka masno and ka sutra, sure, but I think se ckaji vs. nu troci should
remain.

(The selvli distinction is of a type I enjoyed making when I first learnt the
langauge; nowadays I fear my manner of usage has been bluntened.)

Thanks very much; great to know someone is listening, and critically!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nick Nicholas, Melbourne Uni, Australia.  nsn@{munagin.ee|mullauna.cs}.mu.oz.au
"Despite millions of dollars of research, death continues to be this nation's
number one killer"      - Henry Gibson, Kentucky Fried Movie
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