Hans Christian Andersen

[cbmvax!uunet!MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU!cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu!nsn]

>[Note - I am using "ki'u" and "ni'i" the way suggested in a previous
>mail on the subject]

Allowing an ambiguity in the interpretation of .i+BAI+bo is intolerable; and
if you can't change the lojban community's mind on this one (well, not that
most of them have an opinion) by protodictionary time, your text will have
to be changed back to the traditional inconsistency.

>.i ko'a djica lo nolraixli   .i ri mulno
>beloka nolraixli be'o jo se zanru beko'a

My first problem is that {mulno} is starting for me to mean {ba'o}. OK, that's
just me. The second is that your use of {zanru} is for me vague: I'd rather
you state what the princess was approved for. But the places of zanru are not
unclefted (you can't say x1 approves x2 for x3-ing; only x1 approves that x2
happen). Thus, if we suppose marriage (to be approporiately reactionary :) ,
we need to say {.i ri mulno loka nolraixli .ijo lenu lego'i speni ko'a cuse
zanru ko'a}. But you lose your {jo}. You'd get it back with my experimental
cmavo {xe'e}: {.i ri mulno beloka nolraixli be'o joi xe'e se zanru be ko'a
beifai lenu ri speni ko'a}.
You don't have to give the extra explication of what the princess is approved
for; but your phrase does not exclude the interpretation "If she was an
utter princess, he'd say "Jolly Good!", and move off to the next."
You can actually get around this by saying, say, {jo se spezau beko'a}. It'd
work, and sort of satisfies my dikyjvo sensibilities.

>gi lorinika nolraixli ku ko'a na se birti .uu

OK, having seen the English, I know what you mean by {ni ka}, but I still
think the phrase {leni ri nolraixli} is sufficient (assigning a fuzzy-logic
truth value to all predications, like the amount by which *the predication*
"they are princesses" is true.
Yes I know, not all princesses are princesssish; what you are really saying
is {leni ri mele'eka nolraixli}.
Still, if you can see nix better, stick to {nika}.

>.i ri selkecmlu .uuse'inai ri'a lo carvi .e lo xlali viltcima

{ri'atu'a}. Actually, the {tu'a} rule is becoming irritatingly rote-ish, but
what can you do... cause != causer (inanimate != action)

>.i ni'a flecu lo djacu vi le kerfa .e le taxfu

{ni'a} is "below"; {mo'ini'a} is "downwards".

>.i cusku fara ledu'u ra nolraixli mulno

I don't think {ra} works; the referent is *way* back. But {ru} could pick up
the king. Either anaphorise on appearance (which will be hell in unselfconscious
prose, I know, all this mess of {goi}), or say {le nixli}.

>re bacru noda ku'i

This should be {ri}

>i rogo'i se verta le nolraixli goi fo'a ca'o le nicte

vreta

>ni'o co'i le cerna cu preti fofo'a feleli'i fo'a capu sipna ge'ekau

I feel like {ge'ekau} is a son I sired and no longer recognise. Though I
force myself to do so comfortably, I aknowldedge that this is a perceptive
expression.

>.i lu .oi mabla seisa'a selcu'u fo'a

A {sei} clause can only have SOV syntax. The above is equivalent to {mabla
fo'a seisa'a selcu'u}.

>.i mi su'eso'uroi .uu ganga'i le kanla ca'o piro le nicte

*ganga'i*?! Well, maybe, but I don't like it. Lojban may never obtain a
general-purpose factitive (-ri'a necessitates tu'a [or xe'e]), but I don't
think -ga'i is it, though I must admit it is plausible. I'd just say gangau:
{mi gansu lenu lemi kanla cu ganlo} -> {mi kangau lemi kanla}. As opposed to
{tu'a mi rinka lenu lemi kanla cu ganlo} -> {tu'a mi kanri'a lemi kanla}

>.i doi cev. pei do'u ma nenri le ckana

I see you're having trouble with "By God!" phrases too ;) I don't find this
rendering satisfying.

>ni'o ni'ibo co'i djuno ledu'u fo'a nolraixli mulno ki'u lenu fo'a fi le
>reno sairdicne jo'u le reno gacykicne cu ganse fele dembi

{fi le}... strictly speaking, this should be {fi tu'ale}; the matresses are
not themselves the conditions of sensing.

>.i lo ckaji loka ganse du'ila'edi'u cu nolraixli mulno ju'o

I think you mean {lo ckaji be loka ganse pedu'i la'edi'u}

>ni'o le nolrainanla goi ko'a galfi fo'a le speni

{tu'a le nolrainanla}, to be Lojbab-pedantic; and I don't think {galfi} is
necessary. {co'a speni} or {spegau} should be enough.

>.i le dembi pu se punji fi la larkumfa

{pu}? I'm never sure about story-telling time, but I think you should escape
story time into the present (flashforward) before saying this {pu} ({pu} for
us, {ba} in story time): {.ikibo le dembi pu se punji}

>.i pamai le lujvo po'u zo cucyzbi cu satci te fanca fezoidy. Naesen paa
>Skoen dy.   .i mi nelci ledi'u bangrdanska tanru

that's {fanva}

Apart from the points mentioned above, you handled the grammar and vocab
well (I particularly liked the use of {co'i}); the style is straightforward,
though not as "colourful" as the English translation.

In contrast to what I get with Ivan's text, what I get with Colin's is a lot
of "Huh? Oh, no, that's right." cpana punji, fi'o sefta and ge'ekau were
examples of that here. This suggests to me (and Colin's choppy sentences,
almost reminiscent of his earlier "colloquial" piece, seem to confirm it)
that my stereotype of Colin is more of an "explorer" with the language than
my stereotype of Ivan is. (To detour: even Ivan's counterexample of his
being explorative with {fi'a} is revealing. {fi'a} is the more natural,
less detail bound way of asking ("um, it's just an argument"). Most of us,
having in mind the answer for the second use of {fi'a}, would have veered
off to {cu'e}.

In any case: Colin's tale seems to me to set the tone for standard prose;
its sentences are choppy and to the point, ellipsis is applied but not abused
(as I suspect I have done), UI are used moderately (neither too few, like me,
nor too many, like Lojbab, whose JL articles - I say this not having read them
for 3 months - read like eyebrow raising exercises :) .

It thus annoys me that, despite the fact that the above-mentioned points are
not critical at all, the tale still comes out somewhat dry, certainly so in
comparison to the English. I don't think this is Colin's fault; I think
the problem lies in the language's lack of a culture and colloquial usage.

I certainly know that I could only do worse than Colin has.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nick Nicholas, Melbourne Uni, Australia.  nsn@{munagin.ee|mundil.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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