Re: BEGINNER'S QUESTION: internal sumti

[Nick Summers <nsummers@hutch.com.au>]

The salient points gleaned from the several replies received so far are
I think:

1 > I would tend to interpret "Y vecnu" as a salesperson who sells Ys,
  > because "vecnu" is transitive in an essential way.  (That's not a
  > Lojban concept.)  Thus: "X is a salesman of sweet-talking dolls".
  (jc)

  (Question: do I interpret "Y vecnu" as the tanru < Y vecnu > or the
  bridi < Y cu vecnu >?)

2 > The element isn't "almost clausal", it IS clausal (bridi), and would
  > have been clausal even without the arguments.
  (jc)

  (Question: is it clausal to the tanru or to the bridi or both?)

3 > As for "who...", I like to think of it like this: a bridi expresses
a
  > relation between all of its arguments, even if some are not
explicitly
  > designated by words.
  (jc)

  (of course! Too much desire for complexity on my part.)

4 > 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.
  (rjc)

  ...ah ha...(what I need here is a mark, like the !, but which
expresses
              delight at sudden revelation; the enlightenment mark)
SO:
    That is a talker type of seller.
     That is a talker.to.you.about.beautiful.things of type salesperson.
      That is a salesperson(talking.to.you.about.beautiful.thing(s)).
       That's a salesperson who talks to you about beautiful things.

Right?

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

And to me, too. I'll try it backwards, from english to lojban, and see
how I go.

Thanks to Jim Carter, Robert J. Chassell, and Florent
Dupont-De-Dinechin.

Nick

There are many linguistic/grammatical terms floating around these lists
that I've never heard of. (My favourite at the moment is agglutinative.)
Before I head for my oed, are there any online resources for their
decipherment? I have seen mention of the LINGUIST list, which may be
above my head, but does anyone have an address anyway?