A fairy tale

[Ivan A Derzhanski <cbmvax!uunet!COGSCI.ED.AC.UK!iad>]

>  Date:        Thu, 19 Mar 1992 17:43:30 GMT
>  From: CJ FINE <C.J.Fine@BRADFORD>
>
>  Answering Ivan's comments on my text
>  > >
>  > >  lu le nolraixli nega'u le dembi li'u
>  >
>  > {ga'u}, `up from <direction modal>'?  Does this work for static `on'?
>
>  I don't know how else to do it!

How about {gapru} ({le nolraixli poi gapru le dembi})?

>  > {nolrainanla}.  That is, `most noble lad'.  {nolraitrubre} would be
>  > more precise, but it is too long.  Pity we have no gismu for `monarch'.
>
>  Please join me in a campaign against precision.

Campaign against precision?  You'll have to fight me then.  :-)  In
this case here the English is really ambiguous: a prince can be the
son of a king (or a pharaoh, or...), or he can be the ruler of a
principality.  If this ambiguity is regular, that is, if it is not by
chance that English uses the same word, then we're in trouble, because
the disjunctive concept won't be easy to put into Lojban.

>          <...> why is the Prince of Liechtenstein not a king?

Because Liechtenstein is not a kingdom.  I'm afraid this fact won't be
easy to express in Lojban, since all emperors, czars, kings, princes
(such as the one of Liechtenstein) and the like are equally {nobli
traji turni}.  If we want to distinguish between them, we'll need
le'avla, as we will if we want to talk of dukes, marquesses, earls,
viscounts, barons, baronets and knights.

Note that the prince of Liechtenstein is not a {nanla} anymore.

>          The precision you suggest is not necessary here. Even if the
>                  prince is in fact the son of a king (as it later appears
>                  he is) that does not mean that you have to say so.

I fail to see why you would want not to, given that it takes no extra
labour; that is, why you want to keep the imprecision of the original.

>  > Er, I think {slabu} meant {to'e cnino}, not {to'e citno}.
>
>  I hope you're wrong.

Verdict, Messrs LeChevalier and Cowan?

>  Good thought about the pronoun. I hate "goi" - it always seems
>  intrusive, particularly in a translation (as opposed to an original
>  composition).

Not in my eyes.  I love {goi}.  Three short syllables - {goi qo'w} -
save you a lot of repetition afterwards, particularly in original
composition (as opposed to a translation; but still you'll find that
many referential noun phrases have no particularly literary value and
will profit from being replaced by a pronoun).

>  > [{cucyzbi}] is a good Danish tanru, but .uu it is a poor Lojban tanru.
>
>  ko cusku ledo krinu bedi'u pe'udoi .ivAn

Well, actually, maybe I'm wrong.  It seems to me that something can
only be called a {nazbi} if it is really a body part - a breathing
tool and organ of olfaction.  If this is not the case, then I propose
the Slavic-inspired tanru {cucyza'u} for the heel part of the shoe.

Ivan