Lojban puzzles

[.arpis.]

Occasionally, I feel the need to sa'enai "do some lojban". Just now I think I understand what I crave in those moods, and I think "lojban puzzle" describes it pretty well. I'm not particularly coherent right now, but I'll try to explain what I'm thinking.

A lojban puzzle:
Has a correct (or at least best or canonical) solution; no open questions.
Requires the solver to think lojbanically; anything that's mechanical is out.
Is still interesting with good references; use of the CLL, jbovlaste, and the BPFK sections is almost expected.
Solving one furthers one's knowledge of lojban.

Anyone have any?

--

.i se namkei co lojbo

ni'o ru'i nai ku mi djica lo nu sa'enai lojbo zukte .i ca co'a mi ju'o cu'i jimpe lo du'u mi ma kau caidji ca lo bi'unai cnitcini .i pe'i lu se namkei co lojbo li'u velski co xamgu .i mi na ca ka'e filsmu ciski .i ku'i mi ciski troci

le lojbo se namkei zo'u tu'e
ni'o da drani ja xagrai ja selzau danfu .i na preti co darlu danfu
ni'o sarcu fa lo du'u lojbo pensi .i na pensi claxu cumki
ni'o cinri ku'i se ja'e nai tu'a lo plixau se sitna .i kanpe fi li pi so'a fe lo nu pilno cy ly ly joi la jbovlaste joi zo'ei by fy
ni'o lo pu'u dafygau kei xagzenri'a zo'e poi lojbo djuno
tu'u

.i e'o

--
mu'o mi'e .arpis.

[Paul Predkiewicz]

Something along the lines of "What gets wet when it dries?"

kamisori

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[Muhammad Nael]

I think so, if you take it apart, you will find something interesting:

"What gets wet when it dries?"

You used (get wet) to mention its state, to create a real conflict between the words you would use (gets dry) instead of (dries)... a bit weak explanation, I know, but that's what English allows me!
So, "What gets wet as it dries <something>" should mean that it takes the wetness out of something else, so I'd say that this isn't playing with words but may well be a "Lojbanic puzzle"!
PS. I'm ignoring it's a known trick here ;-)

[Jonathan Jones]

ma binxo lo cilmo va'o lonu ra sudgau

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mu'o mi'e .aionys.

.i.e'ucai ko cmima lo pilno be denpa bu .i doi.luk. mi patfu do zo'o
(Come to the Dot Side! Luke, I am your father. :D )

[Muhammad Nael]

"ma binxo lo cilmo va'o

lonu ra sudgau"
What?!

[Jonathan Jones]

what becomes a wet thing under conditions of an event of it causing dryness?

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[Mark E. Shoulson]

On 06/22/2011 10:39 AM, Jonathan Jones wrote:

what becomes a wet thing under conditions of an event of it causing dryness?

On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 8:31 AM, Muhammad Nael <muhamm...@gmail.com> wrote:

"ma binxo lo cilmo va'o

lonu ra sudgau"
What?!

I think the problem here is with the underlined word; Muhammad may not be familiar with compound cmavo.  Is that it?

Basically, when you have a bunch of cmavo in a row, sometimes people write them with no spaces between (because after all, we can tell where they start and end by the consonant-vowel structure), especially if the cmavo-phrase is in some sense tightly linked together.  So {lo nu} is a very common construction, and people sometimes like to write is as {lonu}.

Yow.  I wonder how this will work out in your Arabic orthography.  Leaving spaces out is not such a huge deal in printed Latin letters, but it alters the shapes of things hugely in Arabic, potentially making it harder to recognize the word as a stream of cmavo.

~mark

[Muhammad Nael]

That was it... I'm perfectly good with Lojban grammar, but my vocab is still very small.
BTW, I sent you a mail.

[John E Clifford]

Doesn't all this ruin the puzzle?  Or is that the point: pun riddles are nigh impossible in Lojban?

---

From: Muhammad Nael <muhamm...@gmail.com>
To: loj...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, June 22, 2011 10:25:05 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Lojban puzzles

That was it... I'm perfectly good with Lojban grammar, but my vocab is still very small.
BTW, I sent you a mail.

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[Jonathan Jones]

I think there have been word-play puzzles in Lojban, but I don't know any off the top of my head and I do know they're rather more difficult to make than they are in English.

But, yes, the Lojban of this particular puzzle is not a puzzle at all, because of the nature of Lojban itself.

[Alex Rozenshteyn]

So in English, the answer could be "a towel"?

.i do'e lo glibau se danfu ju'o cu'i xu lo krebu'u .i .ua nai ru'e

          Alex R

[Ian Johnson]

"dries" in the sense of {sudgau} instead of in the sense of {sudbi'o}. The whole puzzle in English is based on {sudgau} and {sudbi'o} being the same word.

[Alex Rozenshteyn]

Also, "dries" could mean {sudri'a} (non-agentatively cause to be dry), so {tu'a lo krebu'u mi sudri'a .ije ri cimbi'o}

[Paul Predkiewicz]

Then how about something similar to what can be read in the little hobbit?
As far as i can remember there were a couple of puzzles...something
like what has roots reaching deep into the earth blabla and the answer
was a mountain or something... i can't really remember

[Jonathan Jones]

Or anything else that gets wet when it makes something else dry, but the OP's point was that we should make Lojbanic puzzles.

[Alex Rozenshteyn]

.i ko'a ro da citka
.i go'i loi cipni .e loi mabru .e loi tricu .e loi xrula
.i batci lo trise .e lo gasta
.i zalvi lo jdari rokci da
.i catra loi nolraitru .i se fesygau loi tcadu
.i rapyda'i loi glatu cmana ja'e lo dizlo

.i ko'a mo

source: http://www.berghuis.co.nz/abiator/unit/hobbit/ch/riddles.html

[Alex Rozenshteyn]

I am OP (I have to remember to change which name I use, and I often forget; you can see that the source emails are the same except for the part that comes after the "+").

[Michael Turniansky]

On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 5:50 PM, Alex Rozenshteyn <rpglo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> .i ko'a ro da citka
> .i go'i loi cipni .e loi mabru .e loi tricu .e loi xrula
> .i batci lo trise .e lo gasta
> .i zalvi lo jdari rokci da
> .i catra loi nolraitru .i se fesygau loi tcadu
> .i rapyda'i loi glatu cmana ja'e lo dizlo
>
> .i ko'a mo

lo temci xu
--gejyspa

[.arpis.]

je'a temci

The riddle works better in English, though, because it sounds better, and because the figurative language doesn't seem as forced.

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mu'o mi'e .arpis.

[Pierre Abbat]

On Wednesday 22 June 2011 16:31:47 Ian Johnson wrote:
> "dries" in the sense of {sudgau} instead of in the sense of {sudbi'o}. The
> whole puzzle in English is based on {sudgau} and {sudbi'o} being the same
> word.

I wouldn't say "sudgau" of a towel. I'd say "sudri'a". There's also "sudzu'e".

Pierre
--
I believe in Yellow when I'm in Sweden and in Black when I'm in Wales.

[.arpis.]

.i lo te frica be lo si'o ce'u gasnu bei lo si'o ce'u zukte zo'u tu'e
.i da gasnu gi'o nai xu zukte
.i da gasnu na gi'o xu zukte
.i ma gasnu gi'e na zukte
tu'u

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mu'o mi'e .arpis.

[Jorge Llambías]

On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 11:10 PM, .arpis. <rpglover...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> .i ma gasnu gi'e na zukte

lo lazni .i lo lazni be da na zukte da gi'e gasnu lo nu lo drata cu zukte da

mu'o mi'e xorxes

[Luke Bergen]

Is this a puzzle or are you asking about the difference between zukte and gasnu?

In case the latter:
gasnu has x1 bringing about an event.  mi gasnu lo nu lo fagri cu sisti -> I put out the fire.
zukte has x1 doing a thing. mi zukte lo nu bajkla lo mi zdani -> I run to my house.

The trick I use to keep them straight is that if it feels weird to have the x1 agent as one of the sumti in the x2 event, then it's probably gasnu.  It doesn't always work but it usually helps frame the question.

I'm sure one of the jbocei will chime in shortly and give a more technically precise distinction

On Jun 22, 2011 10:10 PM, ".arpis." <rpglover...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Luke Bergen]

Beat me to it. And as usual, with a clearer example ;) .u'i

And now "rinka".  Is ro da poi gasnu a subset of ro da poi rinka?

[Pierre Abbat]

On Wednesday 22 June 2011 22:10:04 .arpis. wrote:
> .i lo te frica be lo si'o ce'u gasnu bei lo si'o ce'u zukte zo'u tu'e
> .i da gasnu gi'o nai xu zukte
> .i da gasnu na gi'o xu zukte
> .i ma gasnu gi'e na zukte
> tu'u

mi zukte ko'a ko'e .ijo mi gasnu ko'a gi'e djica lo nu ko'e jalge ko'a .imu'a
la .vilym. pinxe lo sodva .ija'ebo la .vilym. bilma fi la .satpinc. iku'i vy
na djica lonu bilma la .satpinc. i la .vilym. zukte lonu pinxe lo sodva lonu
na taske .enai lonu bilma fi la .satpinc. i la .vilym. ja'a gasnu lo nu pinxe
lo sodva

mu'omi'e .pier.
--
Jews use a lunisolar calendar; Muslims use a solely lunar calendar.

[Alex Rozenshteyn]

I should have clarified; I was asking about the difference. I can see how their meanings are different, but there's some subtlety in the first place that I feel I should have a better grasp of.

Just to make sure I understood the example, I'll try to translate it to English:

Someone avoiding doing x isn't a volitional entity doing x, but who causes someone else to do x.

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          Alex R

[Luke Bergen]

Mmmm. Given that, I think the two words with the most subtle distinction are rinka and gasnu

[Alex Rozenshteyn]

No, because gasnu requires agency, while rinka does not. {je'aku lo solri ku jai rinka lo nu mi glare goi ko'a .ije naku sy gasnu ko'a}

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          Alex R

[Muhammad Nael]

A note to everyone here... I'm not sure if this is a setting in my notebook but I'm saying it anyway, The quote list is getting really long, please do less quoting if you don't need all this text.

[Alex Rozenshteyn]

Most of us use gmail, which automatically quotes and hides quotes that you've already seen.

so'e mi pilno la'oi gmail noi zmiku sitna gi'e mipre lo se sitna noi pu viska

On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 6:25 AM, Muhammad Nael <muhamm...@gmail.com> wrote:

A note to everyone here... I'm not sure if this is a setting in my notebook but I'm saying it anyway, The quote list is getting really long, please do less quoting if you don't need all this text.

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          Alex R

[Luke Bergen]

That's my story.  Though on android devices there's a handy checkbox in the gmail app "include text" that you can just uncheck.
Personally I need to get into the habbit of unchecking that

[Jonathan Jones]

Yeah, Gmail is awesome. I especially like how it groups messages in the same subject together.

On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 8:28 AM, Luke Bergen <lukea...@gmail.com> wrote:

That's my story.  Though on android devices there's a handy checkbox in the gmail app "include text" that you can just uncheck.
Personally I need to get into the habbit of unchecking that

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