Phone game: TV

[cbmvax!uunet!MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU!nsn]

OK, OK. If you people are gonna discuss the phone game proceedings, I might
as well publish them already :)



Mark's starting sentence was:

Until you start sitting up straight and stop playing with your food, young
man, there'll be no television for you --- that's for sure!

He handled this as:

pu'o le mu'e do co'a xagysirji zutse gi'e na'e kelci le do sanmi doi citno
nanmu kei .i'enairo'a do cu .e'anai catlu le se tivni vau ju'o

Ivan>I interpreted this as:

Ivan>`in the prelude of <you begin to <sit straight and not play with your
Ivan> meal> > you watch the telly',

Ivan>addressed to a young male human, of whom the speaker socially disapproves;
Ivan>moreover, he considers the telly watching impermissible.

Ivan>Since the telly watching, which precedes the sitting and refraining
Ivan>from food playing, is attitudinally modified, I chose to make it the
Ivan>main clause, and report the events in their natural order.

Mark comments:

]I'm iffy on {xagysirji}, maybe {na'e} is wrong for where it is.  {citno
]nanmu} is inexcusably malglico, I can only hope the UI helps explain it
](though it's attached to the whole phrase, where I think it makes more
]sense).  I'm uncomfortable with having the negation only in the UI, but,
]argh, I can't get comfortable with either having or lacking another
]negator.  Perhaps it's wrong, or maybe I just haven't seen it enough.  I
]can only hope.

{zansirji}, probably, would be better. The {na'e} is fine. {citno nanmu}
should really be {citno .e'u} or {citno .ioru'e}.

The UI problem... ah. Does it mean "(I forbid this!) You are watching TV",
or "(I forbid that) you should watch TV"?

This is not easy:

{mi cmima .au le fonxa kelci} - "I want to be a member", or "I am a member, and
have wanted this"?

This is tied up with the tense of {cmima} in:
{mi djica lenu mi cmima le kelci}. What, if any, is its link with the tense of
{djica}?

And back to {.e'a}, what's the difference between

A) do cu .e'a catlu
B) do cu .e'anai catlu
C) do na .e'a catlu
D) .e'a do na catlu
E) do na .e'anai catlu
F) .e'anai do na catlu

?

1) You're watching, and I allow this
2) You're watching, though I don't allow this
3) You're watching, and I don't allow you to
4) You're not watching, as I don't allow you to
5) You're not watching, and I allow this
6) You're not watching, and I don't allow this
7) You're not watching,  and I don't allow you to?

I think I'll disagree with Mark, and opine that {.e'anai} can't itself negate
the bridi. Do the mechanics of Deontic Logic help here?

In any case, let's chalk this one up as unresolved.

Ivan>No interjection can change the meaning of the sentence _I am a member_
Ivan>to `I am not a member' or `I want to be a member'.  And attitudinals
Ivan>are just that, interjections.  They show your evaluation of the fact
Ivan>reported, but don't alter the fact that the fact is reported.

The phone game runs over the ocean, the phone game runs over the sea, the
phone game goes...


Well, here you are watching the telly, young man, and then you'll go
and sit up nice straight and won't play with your meal!

... kerrrunch!

Says Ivan:

]This sentence was due a week ago, but I was under horrible pressure (I
]had to finish a term paper), and now, as I looked at Mark's Lojban, I
]was horrified by the realisation that (1) it makes frighteningly
]little sense (he's definitely not saying what he wants to) and (2) my
]own colloquial English can't really say what I read into it.  In
]particular, the "here you are" might be better expressed as "there you
]go" - it's what you would say when you see someone doing something
]that he shouldn't do in your book.  I don't understand why the speaker
]finds that sitting up and not playing with the meal is wrong, but
]that's what Mark is saying.

Ivan>In general, my strategy as a fonxa kelci is based on the understanding
Ivan>that the sentence(s) I get from Mark are to be translated faithfully,
Ivan>even if real world knowledge suggests that he intends something else
Ivan>than the obtained meaning, and that his additional comments must not
Ivan>be read until my own translation has gone off to Colin, or if read
Ivan>must be ignored and not allowed to influence my understanding of the text.

Ivan interpreted the {.e'anai} like I did: "You're watching television! (And I
forbid this!)", rather than "I forbid you to watch television".
Second, there is something about "until" Ivan left out with "and then":
-------------------------------> [sit up straight]
[you're "watching" television"]

Sitting up straight is a *condition* for the cessation of [forbidden]
watching television.

Ivan>Not in Mark's text.  He only said that the telly watching occurs
Ivan>before the beginning of the straight sitting.  No causal link in sight.

"Here you are", without more context (and the breakdown stops the context
from getting through) isn't that helpful, but the not above should keep
things rolling.
Ivan's observation is right; the {.i'enai} is tagged on to the wrong place.
Sitting up is not what's disapproved; it's failure to have already done so.
Should {.i'enai} go after {pu'o} (`like, why is it "until" and not "already"?')?
I don't think so. Was it meant for "young man"? If so, that's a *colossal*
booboo - but the explicit {kei} makes it unlikely.

This has been most instructive, particularly as I have no ready solution.


Colin comes up with:

.ua doza'a cavi jundi le vidni doi citnau  .ibabo do klama gi'ebabo
sraji .i'e zutse gi'e na kelci le sanmi

Ivan>I didn't mean "go" in "you'll go and ..." to be interpreted literally
Ivan>(as {klama}).  Is there really no such idiom in English?

Colin notes:

] Ivan put some English comment that expressed things about the sentence that
]I didn't find in the sentence (specifically the disapproval), so I chose not
]to translate these.

Hm. I concede this point to Colin. Nice to see the more accurate use of {vidni},
rather than {tivni}.

Sylvia:

Hey! I see you watching TV, young man.  You will come here, sit up straight,
and not play with your food.

Ivan>I didn't insist enough that the {nu zutse gi'e na kelci} was being
Ivan>disapproved of, and it already sounds as though the young man is being
Ivan>told to do it.  Damn.  Why "come here" and not "go there", though?

The "Hey" is ambiguous, but that is to be expected. Good translation, but
I'm charmed to see Sylvia read in all the attitudinals Colin left out :)
(At least, I *sense* an order in Sylvia's wording, which is not there in
Colin's.)

Nora, finally:

.ua mi viska lenu .i'enai do zgana lo tivni se tigni doi citnau ga'i
.i .ai ko klama ti gi'e drasratse gi'e na cadykei ledo cidja

I wonder if {mi viska lenu} is equivalent to {za'a}. I haven't the energy
to dispute that it does :)
I am not embarrassed to admit that {tigni} had never ever occured to me
before. The translation is accurate, methinks. I also rather liked {cadykei}.

So, we started with:

Until you start sitting up straight and stop playing with your food, young
man, there'll be no television for you --- that's for sure!

and ended up with:

Aha! I see that, to my chagrin, you are watching a television performance,
young man (*stick nose in air*). You will come to this place here and
sit up correctly and not idle-play with your food.

OK, a nasty transformation there in the middle. Whatever.
---
'Dera me xhama t"e larm"e,	      T  Nick Nicholas, EE & CS, Melbourne Uni
 Dera mbas blerimit		      |         Mail: nsn@munagin.ee.mu.oz.au
 Me xhama t"e larm"e!		      |  Omiloume ellhnika/Esperanto parolata/
 Lumtunia nuk ka ngjyra tjera.'	      |  {mika'e tavla baula lojban.je'uru'e}
 - Martin Camaj, _Nj"e Shp'i e Vetme_ |      (Better .sig suggestions welcome)