Is this right? Not yet, but keep trying!

[cowan (John Cowan)]

> My roomate, Brad is gone for winter semester and I want to put a sign, in 
> lojban, up on the door.
> 
> The sentance I wanted to post was:
>    This is not the home of Brad from winter of 91 until spring of 91.
> 
> is:
>    na la brad zandi temci dura 91 vensa 91
> a correct was of saying this?

Well, no.  It's ungrammatical, for one thing; also "zandi" should be "zdani",
and "dura" should be "dunra".  What you said means something like:
	Brad is not [reading "na" as "naku"] a homish-time type of winter
	of the year of 91 springs, 91.
Other reconstructions are also possible.  You got in most of the needed
words (except there isn't anything representing "This") but the grammar
is disjointed.

You need to break down what you're saying into its component parts.  What
is the central idea here?  "This is not a home for Brad".  That would be
"ti na zdani la brad."  That's the core of the sentence.

We now need to add something specifying that this sentence is true only
after time "winter 91" and before time "spring 91".  This interval can
be expressed as "le temci be le dunra be li 91 bei le vensa be li 91".
This expresses what you meant by *"temci dunra 91 vensa 91" but with
structure so it can be understood.

This structure breaks down as:
	(le temci
		be (le dunra be li 91)
		bei (le vensa be li 91))
because the outer "be...bei..." binds the 2nd and 3rd places of temci
into the selbri.  Likewise, the inner "be"s bind the number 91 ("li 91")
into the selbri "dunra" and "vensa".

Now we need to say that the bridi "ti na zdani la brad." is true during
the interval "le temci be le dunra be li 91 bei le vensa be li 91".
The word corresponding to "during" is "ca", the present tense marker.
So we insert the sumti "le temci..." into the bridi prefixed by "ca".
This produces the complete sentence:
	ti na zdani la brad. ca le temci be le dunra be li 91
	bei le vensa be li 91
which means:
	This is not a home for Brad during the time-interval from the
	winter of year 91 to the spring of year 91.

To read this sentence out loud, we pronounce "91" as "sopa".

The one remaining objection to this sentence is the use of "ti".  Theoretically,
"ti" means "this thing I am pointing at", so its use in writing is ambiguous.
It might be interpreted correctly as "this home", but also might be taken to
say "this piece of paper", "this door", "this ink used for writing", etc.
None of these is a "zdani la brad.", to be sure, but "na" simply denies the
truth of what is said without affirming some other truth.  Therefore,
a possible reconstruction would be:
	na'e me la brad. zdani ca le temci be le dunra be li 91
	bei le vensa be li 91

This uses the construction "me" which converts a sumti into a selbri.
"me la brad" means "is Brad", and "me la brad. zdani" means "a Brad type of
home".  "Na'e" is scalar negation.  There is no sumti before the selbri,
so this is an observative.  The transcription therefore is:
	(Observe:) A non-Brad type of home during the time-interval
	from winter 91 to spring 91.