Re: wants and needs

[Robin Turner <robin@BILKENT.EDU.TR>]

co'o doi

Thanks for the Ferrari feedback! Reluctant as I am to burden the mmembers
of Lojban-list with my appalling grammar, this kind of thing is worth more
than hours studying the refgram (and also seems to raise some interesting
discussion points).

la kris. cucku di'e

>Robin wrote to another list:
>> mi cu         nitcu la      feraris. le     nu      se         djica  =
>ninmu
>> I  [function] need [article]Ferrari[article][event] ["passive"]desire =
>women
>> I need a Ferrari in order to be desired by women.
>
>I would translate this as "I need a ferrari in order to be a desireable =
>woman".  If you want "woman" to be a sumti, you need an article.

li'a do drani
Which article would depend on the desires of the speaker - probably lo'a
ninmu is most appropriate here.

>Also, note that you don't need {cu} here, although it's allowed.

I put it in for the benefit of the naljbo audience, though I often retain
{cu} in my own writing to help keep things clear - I prefer to elide as
little as possible until I've got the sentence structures etched into my
brain.

>> I could also say simply "mi cu nitcu la porc.", but this would
>> automatically invite the response "cu nitcu ko'a ma" (need it (for) =
>what?).
>
>You can't start a sentence with {cu}.   Just {nitcu ko'a ma} or {nitcu =
>fi ma} would work fine.  I guess the former is clearer when laying out =
>these sentences for a naljbo audience.

.ua ki'e  I'd thought it was just normally elided.

la xorxes. cusku di'e

>>> mi cu nitcu la feraris. le nu se djica ninmu
>>
>>Question: is {la feraris.} the appropriate way to refer to the brand
>>name of a car?
>
>It might be, but then the brand is not what was needed, perhaps
>{lu'a la feraris}: a member of the class called Ferrari. There's also
>the problem of what goes in the x2 of nitcu. We don't want to assert
>that there is some Ferrari such that I need it.

I was uncritically following the classic example
mi klama la bastn. la atlentas. ti la ford.
understanding {la} to mean simply "that named", rather than "a specific
entity named". pe'i.o'acu'i this problem stems from the same root as the
le/lo controversy.  Just as we associate (for reasons I still do not
undersatnd) specificity with non-veridicality (and vice versa) we also seem
to associate having a given name with specificity (usually, but not always
the case).

>I would say:
>
>        mi nitcu le nu mi se karcrferari kei le nu mi se djica loi ninmu
>        I need to be ferraried in order to be desired by women.
>
>[{karcrferari} inherits the place structure of {karce}: "x1 is a Ferrari
>for carrying x2 propelled by x3".]

Cool! But does {karcrferari} mean "to have a Ferrari", "to drive a Ferrari"
or "to be a passenger in a Ferrari"?

co'o mi'e robin.


Robin Turner

Bilkent Universitesi,
IDMYO,
Ankara,
Turkey.

<http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8309>