Re: Nice dancer (was: drinking soup, etc.)

John Cowan wrote:
>
> The Lojban view of "nice dancer": Lojban does *not* resolve
> the difference between "one who is nice and a dancer" and
> "one who dances nicely" in an open compound.  If someone
> were to create a closed compound, nice-dancer, it would be
> necessary to choose a specific interpretation.
>
> The "fast talker" example does not refer to this problem,
> but rather to the problem of which content word is being
> used as the predicate in a particular case.  Thus
> "le sutra tavla" is an argument, whereas "le sutra cu tavla"
> is a predication.
In that case, I'll have to put forth my own conlang
as an example of how it seems possible to resolve it.
Code-named "Tomato", it distinguishes separate
grammatical classes for adjectives, nouns, and adverbs.
An adverb is considered a "close modifier" of noun
or verb, whereas an adjective is a "loose modifier"
only of a noun. A compound seems to be equivalent to
a close modifier attached to the front of the noun.

But the adverb usually gloms onto its modifyee,
so "adverb + noun" = compoundnoun. This is
probably illegal, but what can I do? And alas,
I am unsure of the vocabulary required for
this particular case, never having witnessed
them dancing ... but if they did:

roots: "danas" = "dance", "tor" = "agent", "net" = "nice"
suffixes: "-o" = noun, "-a" = adjective, "-e" = adverb

"neta danasa toro" -> "neta danastoro" = "nice + dancer"
"nete danasa toro" -> "netdanasa toro" = "nice-dance + er"

More precise would be the active participle "-ia",
"netdanasia toro" = "nice-dancing one".
Less so would be the confused conglomeration:
"netdanastoro" = "whew".