Re: cukta

[Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>]

la djer cusku di'e

> Jorge has said:
>       "        But what does it mean to say:
>         "The Divine Comedy" is a literary work by author Dante preserved
> in media paper  (or pages, or whatever)."
>
>         If I understand, Jorge feels that the present 5 sumpti
> structure constrains him from speaking of the work itself, and
> forces him to deal with irrelevent information.

Right.

>         Consider this example:
>         Do cu ba tavla ro lo cukta fa li Divine Comedy li'u
>         fe li Dante li'u

I'll try to correct the grammar. (Hopefully Colin won't mind if
I do his job :)

First: The quotes

To quote _lojban_ text, you have to use {lu ... li'u}, not {li},
which is for numbers.

To quote English text, use {zoi gy. .... .gy.} or any other valid
lojban word instead of {gy.}, which is the one most often used for glico.

To quote a non-lojban name, use {la'o gy. .... gy.} or again
any other word instead of {gy.}

So, you could say {la'o gy. Divine Comedy .gy.} and {la'o gy. Dante .gy.}
or lojbanize the name and say {la dantes.} (I don't know how one would
Lojbanize The Divine Comedy, maybe something like {la divinakomedias.}

Now, correcting that part, we have:

        do cu ba tavla ro lo cukta fa la divinakomedias. fe la dantes.

Notice: no capital letters in lojban. (Only to mark stress other than
in the penultimate syllable, but let's ignore that.)

This is now grammatical, but doesn't say what you want. This is one
selbri {ba tavla}, with four sumti attached: {do}, {ro lo cukta},
{la divinakomedias.}, and {la dantes.}, and you have {do} and {la div.}
in the same x1 slot, and the other two in the same x2 slot.

It probably means "You and The Div. talk to all books and to Dante",
or something like that.

>         I intend this to translate as:
>         We are now talking about the work,"The Divine Comedy"
>         by Dante.

"We" in this case is {mi'o}, "you and mi".

{ba} is the future tense, {ca} is the present tense.

So, I would say:

   mi'o ca tavla fi le selfinti be la dantes. be'o po'u la divinakomedias.

(Side note: you don't need to use {cu} because of two reasons: you have a
tense, and the sumti before the selbri is already "closed", because it's a
member of selma'o KOhA. The presence of any of these saves you from having
to use {cu}, but it's perfectly grammatical to have it there anyway.)

Which translates roughly to Jboglish as:

  You-and-me now talk (to someone or someones unspecified) about the creation-
-by-Dante which-is-the-same-thing-as The Divine Comedy.

Or, as you put it in English:

        We are now talking about the work The Divine Comedy by Dante.

You could use {cukta} with it's current meaning instead, but the x5 place,
the medium of a particular copy of the work, is still irrelevant.
The only justification for that place would be if it had some use, which
I can't see how it could.

>         I intend the phrase "ro lo cukta"  to mean all that really
>         is the entire body of text that is the work, whether
>         located in a classroom, at an ftp site, memorized by
>         someone, or the original manuscript. It is the information.
>         It is the work.

The work is not located in any of those places, because it is not a physical
thing that has a location. (Hard)copies of the work may be in any of those
places. (I don't know about the memorized one.)

{ro lo cukta} means "everything that is a work".

(or whatever {cukta} means, it would mean "everything that is a
book-as-a-container-of-a-work" with the proposed new structure)

This brings up a (totally unrelated) question that I made myself some time
ago, and I had forgotten about it.

{ro lo klama} means the same as {ro lo klama be ?ma}

Is {zo'e} the right answer?

>         If this is incorrect lojban, will someone do it for me as I
>         am sure it is possible to say this.

It is possible to say *anything you want* in lojban, which is not to
say that it's always easy. (Is that too strong a claim? :)

>         This is without reference to any specific hardcopies,
>         using the current cukta definition.

The current definition has a "medium" place, which requires a hardcopy,
even if there is no slot for it.

>         I believe we should give up the word "book," with its
>         solid image, as a descriptor for the X1 position: its
>         use as a keyword should still be O.K.

If we are to keep this definition, I agree. (And also x5 should be dropped.)
But, as I think I mentioned before :), I would prefer the
"container object - contained work - medium of containment" definition.

>         I have to leave this thread for a while as I am having
>         too many problems with my local internet node to continue.

I hope it gets fixed soon so you can keep contributing. It was getting a bit
boring here for a while.

>         Jorge, I don't know you but I want to thank you for
>         initiating an intensely interesting discussion.  I am
>         sure the outcome will be beneficial for lojban.

oiro'a oinairo'e

mi'e xorxes

>
>         Lojbab, thanks for re-posting me, I hope this is the last
>         time I will have to ask you.
>
> jkoenig@hatch.socal.com                     djer.
>