Subject: Re: [lojban] Beyond Whorf: "things," "qualities," and the origin of nouns and adjectives

From: "James F. Carter" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 2 Aug 2000 10:44:14 -0700 (PDT)

On Tue, 1 Aug 2000, Ivan A Derzhanski wrote:

> Jorge Llambias wrote:
> > Thus the Lojban word {botpi} is not class (2) like the English
> > word "bottle". It does not refer to the bundle of properties
> > that make up a bottle, it refers to the relationship that
> > exists between bundles of bottle properties and bundles of
> > bottle contents properties.
> 
> Which is just why it provoked so much debate here. We want to name
> entities -- entities that are more than bundles of properties -- by
> stating (the) categories to which they belong. Thus a bottle is not
> a bottle because it actually or potentially bottles something; it is
> a bottle because it is a vessel with a narrow neck.

Squawk, squawk, bacawk, feathers fly! (without checking if someone else
has already replied thus:)

"It is a bottle because it is a vessel..." But the essence of a vessel
is that it potentially contains something, which is just how the Lojban
definition is written. Thus Jorge really expressed both the Lojban and
the mal<natlang> definition of bottle, given Lojban's bias to emphasize
relations versus "noun-ish things".

On the word "potential", my opinion is that it's still a vessel or bottle
when it's evacuated, so the referent of "its contents" is the empty set. 
However, I'm not going to respond in detail in that discussion.

James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897	FAX 310 206 6673
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