N parts, which are ...
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This page collects all the different ways of expressing in Lojban statements of the form This story has three parts, which are the beginning, the middle and the end. They can pose certain kinds of problems and difficulties, and many of the possible renditions have semantic drawbacks, which shall be listed as well. The Lojban is to contain placeholders. Feel free to list bad translations as well as long as they highlight problems that are beneficial to be aware of.
Lojban | Literal translation | Issues |
---|---|---|
X se pagbu lo ci mei noi A je B je C me ki | X has-parts three-some, which A and B and C are among it. | The relative clause works fine if A, B and C are known to be distinct from each other. Then, if they are all among the sumti, no other things can be among it (as it is only a threesome), and the list is exhaustive. However, pagbu2 is not exhaustive, so the existence of other parts is not excluded. Another drawback of this translation is the lo. The original claim is more adequately expressed with an indefinite description. |
X se pagbu ci da poi broda A ja B ja C | A restrictive relative clause is bad, because it changes the claim from being about things to being about things that satisfy a given property. It is thus a much weaker claim than is needed. | |
X se pagbu ci da noi A je B je C me ki | ||
X menre je se menre A jo'u B jo'u C vu'o noi dratysi'u | ||
me X fa po'o A jo'u B jo'u C vu'o noi dratysi'u |
Other sentences that have the same underlying structure:
- Many strange things happen, some of which are good and some of which are bad.