Re: BEGINNER'S QUESTION: internal sumti

["Robert J. Chassell" <bob@GNU.AI.MIT.EDU>]

   Taking an example from the Diagrammed Grammar:

           ta cu tavla be do bei le melbi ku be'o vecnu

   Am I correct in the following assumptions:

     1  < tavla vecnu > is a tanru for 'salesperson'

Not quite.  More accurately, < tavla vecnu > means a `talker type-of
seller'

Note the use of `type-of' in the English.  `Talker' modifies `seller'
and in English the best sense is often obtained by saying that the
modifier restricts the sense of the modified, i.e., makes it a `type
of'.

Thus, you have

       ta  cu  tavla  vecnu  vau

which means

       That is a talker type of seller.

Once you have the modifier-modified relationship right, the rest of
the example from the diagramed summary makes sense, at least to me.

That you had trouble indicates a bug in the document, and indeed, no
mention in it is made of the useful English gloss `type-of', only
(with respect to "co" of the reverse, `of-type').



* talk,
    x1 talks/speaks to x2 about subject x3 in language x4
    /:/ [not limited to vocal speech, but this is implied by the x4
    without context of some other medium of conversation (use cusku,
    casnu, skicu, ciksi for weaker implication of vocal communication);
    converse/discuss/chat (= simta'a, simsku, vricysimta'a for a
    conversation not clearly delimited by subject)]
    /=/ tavla (tav ta'a)

* sells,
    x1 [seller] sells/vends x2 [goods/service/commodity] to buyer/purchaser
    x3 for amount/cost/expense x4
    /:/ [x1 is a salesperson/salesman/vendor; x3 buys/purchases x2 from x1
    (= terve'u for reordered terms); x4 is the price of x2 to x3 (=
    velve'u for reordered terms); for sale (= fitselve'u, selvenfriti); x2
    may be a specific object, a commodity (mass), an event, or a property;
    pedantically, for objects/commodities, this is sumti-raising from
    ownership of the object/commodity (= po'erve'u, po'erselve'u for
    unambiguous semantics)]
    /=/ vecnu (ven ve'u)