more help

["Mark E. Shoulson" <shoulson@CTR.COLUMBIA.EDU>]

>Date:         Fri, 2 Oct 1992 21:28:59 EDT
>From: "(Todd Crane)" <fly%GEOG.BUFFALO.EDU@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU>

>segu mi na'e gleki ledo na'e prami mi gu mi prami do
>I am non-happy about the-thing-described-as-your non-love for me,
>nevertheless, I love you.
>   -> is {ledo} right?

Yes, but.  {ledo na'e prami} means "Your non-lover", more or less.  {le
prami} is "that-described-as something-that-loves", not "love", and thsu
{le na'e prami} is "that-described-as something-that-other-than-loves".
Also, {ledo na'e prami} is a sumti, and it ends there.  The next sumti,
{mi}, thus fills in the x3 place of {gleki}, which doesn't have an x3
place.  If you wanted to have "your non-lover of me", you'd have to use
{be}, giving {ledo na'e prami be mi}.

You might do better with {lenu do na'e prami mi}: "The-event: you
other-than love me."  The {nu} opens a new bridi, so you don't need {be}
now, and the {gi} (not {gu}, see below) obviates the need for a terminator.

{gu} (or {segu}, as here), is a forethought logical connective.  In using
such a beast, you put the connective up front (as you did), and the special
word "gi" in between.  So your second {gu} should really be {gi}.  I think
the "Nevertheless" might come across better with some UIs, but I never was
too great at those.

>noda zo'u da na'e .iucai sibdo do mi
>There is no x such that x is a other-than loving-thought of mine about you.

Grammatically you're okay, modulo the fact that it's {sidbo}, not {sibdo}.
You could also do away with the prenex and do just {noda na'e sidbo...}, I
believe.

Semantically, it's a another question altogether.  I suppose using {.iu}
like that does imply something about loving thoughts.  Uh, then again, UIs
attach to the construct before or around them, so you're somehow displaying
great affection for non-ideas.  Throw the {.iucai} after {do} so it's in
the right place.  Even then, it's weird.  There's nothing in the world that
isn't an idea about you to occurring to me?  Lojban's always a little
uncomfortable, rightly or wrongly, around figurative speech, and a {pe'a}
here and there can't hurt.  Even given that, I'm still less than
comfortable with that sentence.

>noda zo'u da na'e prami sidbo do mi
>noda zo'u da za'e nalramsidbo do mi
>There is no x such that: x is a non-loving-thought of mine about you
>   -> ?  Is this even close to correct?

Actually, I think I like these a little better than the previous one.  At
least here we know they're loving thoughts.  Before they were just thoughts
about the audience, whom the speaker happpened also to love.  But most
comments about the previous sentence apply here too.

>lu mi nupre be la lerel. na'e cmene mi be'o li'u se bacru ko'a
>"I assure-that Laurel other-than-is-the-name-of me", says he/she/it.
>"I assure you my name is not Laurel", she says.
>   -> correct use of {lu} and {li'u}?
Yes

>      correct use of {be} and {be'o}?
No

>      ???
No, either.

For starters, {be} just attaches one sumti into a selbri, yielding a selbri
(useful to attach sumti into selbri used with LE, which govern selbri.  Um,
read that again, it makes sense.  Better still, read a intelligible
explanation).  To attach more than one sumti, you need to attach subsequent
ones with {bei}.  {be'o} is often elidable.  Uh, for example: {le klama} =
"the goer/comer (to zo'e) (from zo'e) (by route zo'e) (by means zo'e)",
with most of its places ellipsized.  If I wanted to say "The comer to me",
I'd use {le klama be mi}.  "The comer to me from you" would be {le klama be
mi bei do} and so on.

Also, {la lorel.} is "that/those person(s)/thing(s) named "Laurel"", it is
not the name "Laurel" (unless it, too, is named Laurel, but that way lies
madness).  In English, we'd quote the word: "I tell you, 'Laurel' isn't my
name."  In Lojban, we do also.  Either with lu/li'u quotes, or else, if
it's just one word, we can use the slightly shorter {zo} quote, which
quotes one word.

{nupre} is probably the wrong word.  It implies a threat or a promise, i.e.
something that likely hasn't happened yet, but I assure you it will.
{xusra} is probably a better bet.  To assert (or promise, for that matter),
something, you're usually asserting a statement, or at least an event of
some sort.  Thus, a {le du'u} construction is in order.

Also, using {na'e} implies that while "Laurel" doesn't name ko'a, it
probably has some other relationship to ko'a.  Maybe it's written on ko'a,
or spoken by ko'a, or something.  You might to better with simply {na},
implying nothing more than that the relationship "cmene" doesn't hold
between the sumti in question.

Combining all this, we get:
{lu mi xusra ledu'u zo lorel. na cmene mi li'u se bacru ko'a}

What with the new outlook, that should probably be {le se du'u}, actually.

>Thanks much for any help!

You're welcome, hope it helped.

~mark