Interesing Zhenyu - I have been thinking (particularly since you and Mya= lee put forward proposals for changing Glosa) that all that is really neces= sary to remove ambiguity is, as you suggest, simply re-phrase sentences. = One change I would personally favour is to have “o” endings for nouns “a” = ending for adjectives etc.
Enjoy the rest of your trip - wishing yo= u well, Davidjp

----- Original Message -----    From: Zhenyu    To:=  glosalist@yahoogroups.com    Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2010 2:25 AM   Sub= ject: [glosalist] Re: Translation

Fighting tigers can be dangero= us. This sentence is ambiguous. Does it mean:

gerund / object= of gerund / modal / verb / adjective Fighting tigers can be dangerou= s.

or:

present participle / subject / modal / verb / adj= ective Fighting tigers can be dangerous.

Esperantists are pr= oud of the fact that such ambiguities cannot occur in their language. D= oes this make English inferior to Esperanto? No, English can restate th= e sentences with the proper information to remove the ambiguities when = this is needed:

Fighting with tigers can be dangerous. Tiger= s that fight can be dangerous.

By the way, Glosa shares the same struc= tures as English:

Pugna tigri posi es risko. Pugna anti tigr= i posi es risko. Tigri; qi pugna, posi es risko.

These examples are= quite useful and just like a similar one I thought about. In fact, Mondlan= go also has the same ambiguous problem as follow: Mondlango: Katos esan m= anjanta musos. Cats are eating mice. Glosa semani: /1: Plu feli du vor= a plu mus. /2: Plu feli es plu (du-)vora mus. Esperanto: /1:Katoj es= tas mangxantaj musojn. /2:Katoj estas mangxantaj musoj. Here, you can s= ee, Glosa is more exact than Mondlango and some languages having the same p= roblem. Saluta! Li Zhenyu

— In glosalist@yahoogroups.com, Gary R = Miller justi.miller@... wrote:

Dear Robin,

I’m afraid yo= u have missed the point. My translation of the Qo akti? article does = not differ from your translation (which is indeed a very understandable= translation based on logic) because of my perception of German, but be= cause my perception of Glosa differs from yours.

You have pointed = out that Glosa semantics are based more on vocabulary than grammar. Wha= t if a Glosa word has a different meaning in my head than it has in you= rs? Certainly, Glosa words are not yet that clearly defined.

F= or example, I said:

“Homo solve anti lingua difere…”

= You said:

“Iso u solutio ad difere de lingua…”

I pe= rceived problems caused by language diversity as something to be “fough= t against.” You perceived them as something a solution can be “applied = to.” The original German really had more the idea that you translated, = even though you do not know German. (German uses the preposition _f=FCr= _, more akin to the English “for.”) Logic is a tool that in my hand pro= duced one translation and in your hand produced another. One translati= on might be more understandable to one person and the other to another.= If there were a REGULAR USAGE of either preposition that could be asse= rted, there would be no argument here. (Or perhaps just my own personal= ity or feelings about international auxilary languages is showing throu= gh.)

There are also grammar differences. I like Hogben’s idea of “= amplifier,” as seen in my translation here:

Cina-pe detekti i= d ma no-facili. [Chinese find it more difficult.]

What Hogben ca= lls an amplifier would be called an appositive in English in this ins= tance. (The phrase “more difficult” modifies “it.”) Many languages use = appositives. Your solution was a structure using the preposition _kausa= _. Both are understable to me, and both use logic.

One of Noam Cho= msky’s favorite sentences was:

Fighting tigers can be dangerous.

This sentence is ambiguous. Does it mean:

gerund / objec= t of gerund / modal / verb / adjective Fighting tigers can be dangero= us.

or:

present participle / subject / modal / verb / ad= jective Fighting tigers can be dangerous.

Esperantists are p= roud of the fact that such ambiguities cannot occur in their language. = Does this make English inferior to Esperanto? No, English can restate t= he sentences with the proper information to remove the ambiguities when= this is needed:

Fighting with tigers can be dangerous. Tige= rs that fight can be dangerous.

What a headache for a translator w= ho gets only the ambiguous sentence! Every language contains different= information attached to its words. Translators must sometimes supply = missing information or opt to leave out information that is not usually= contained in the second language. This leads to differing translations= by more than one translator and even mistakes. The proverbial “It lose= s something in the translation” also applies here.

By the way,= Glosa shares the same structures as English:

Pugna tigri posi es= risko. Pugna anti tigri posi es risko. Tigri; qi pugna, posi es = risko.

Using the verboid also helps here:

Akti pugna ant= i tigri es risko. (Akti makes pugna an object, requiring the use of= a preposition to connect it with tigri.)

I admire the flexibili= ty of Glosa, as I do the interesting differences in our translations. =

Saluta, _ _ /. Gary #/# ###

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