Re: la <selbri> (was: gadri )

la djim. kartr. cusku di'e

> I'm not totally sure on this construction, but I think "a so-called
> rat" might be rendered as "da poi ratcu .iacu'i".  I restrict "da" to
> actually be a rat, except that the speaker's belief in the predicate
> relation (being a rat) is indicated to be of zero intensity.  In other
> words, the speaker is preparing the listener for a subsequent discovery
> that the referent was other than a rat, at which time the speaker will
> say "I told you so".

That's usable; you could also bring in "voi", which is the new relative-clause
introducer (parallel to "poi" and "noi") that makes a non-actual restriction.

> Here's a challenge: a person's name is "Hunter of Butterflies".
> Translate into Lojban, preserving the essential feature that the
> hunting is restricted to butterflies.  In other words, a tanru like
> "butterfly hunter" is not sufficient.

Bad example; the place structure of "hunt" does the job:

	la kalte be le toldi [ku]
	the-one-called "is-a-hunter-of-butterflies"

A better example would be somebody named "Blue Bear" vs. a blue somebody
named "Bear".  Until the latest grammar revision (not yet published, but
approved in principle at Logfest), we can contrast these as:

	la cribe poi blanu [ku]
	the-one-called "Bear who is blue"

vs.

	la cribe ku poi blanu
	the-one-called "Bear" who is blue

Historically, Loglan/Lojban had only the second possibility, and the "ku"
could be omitted.  Now we allow relative clauses both outside and inside
descriptions, and such distinctions can be made easily.

-- 
John Cowan	cowan@snark.thyrsus.com		...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan
			e'osai ko sarji la lojban.