Re: 10 sentences...

On 10/21/06, Amanda Babcock Furrow <langs@...> wrote:
>         http://www.quandary.org/~langs/10sentences.html
[snip]
> can anybody offer corrections or suggestions to the lojban or Esperanto
> sentences?
The Lojban you have (le cifnu na kakne tavla) is something like "The
infant does not capably-talk". (In technical terms: "kakne" and
"tavla" are forming a tanru.)

You probably want something more along the lines of {le cifnu na kakne
le nu tavla} (in the "dialect" you wrote the sentence in; I'd probably
write it as {lo cifnu na kakne lo nu tavla} with {lo} instead of {le},
according to (my understanding of) the "xorlo" proposal).

That would be something like "It is not the fact that: the infant is
capable of the event of speaking". Or, with a slightly different
negation: {lo cifnu cu na'e kakne lo nu tavla} "The infant is not
capable of the event of speaking" (expressing the negative rather than
denying the affirmative).

Or perhaps even this, using a modal rather than a negation: {lo cifnu
cu nu'o kakne lo nu tavla} "The infant is (potentially/innately) able
to talk but has not yet done so/has not yet realised this potential".

mu'o mi'e .filip.
(Over [I have finished talking; you can respond now]; I am Philip --
the way I usually "sign off" my emails in or about Lojban)
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>