[lojban-beginners] Re: (no subject)

[Robin Lee Powell <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org>]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2004 at 11:59:29AM -0600, melissa@fastanimals.com wrote:
> My understanding is that Lojban, like Loglan before it, has a goal of
> making irrational statements impossible.  I assume that I could make a
> statement that "green clouds sleep furiously," but that's semantics.
> Purely syntactically, it should be impossible to make a statement
> which is valid yet senseless.

I believe that what you're trying to say is that a syntactically valid
sentence in Lojban always has *some* semantic meaning, even if that
meaning is obscure or bizarre or wrong or impossible or whatever.

> If that is the case, what meaning would be taken from
> 
> mi dunda ma ko
> 
> It's part question and part command.

I don't believe that the *semantic* meaning of that sentence is
currently well-defined, but it means something like:

"You must let me give you *something*!  What do you want me to give you?"

> One possible translataion might be "Take whatever you want from me,
> but you're required to take something."
> 
> Or perhaps "Act in such a way that I will give you the reward of your
> choice."

Both of those are excellent.

> Or, as a third option, "Behave such that I'll give *what* to you?"
> with the other party supposed to respond "Ice cream!" or some other
> previously promised reward and thereby be reminded of the inspiration
> for obeying.

Possible, but unwieldy.

-Robin

-- 
Me: http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/  ***   I'm a *male* Robin.
"Constant neocortex override is the only thing that stops us all
from running out and eating all the cookies."  -- Eliezer Yudkowsky
http://www.lojban.org/             ***              .i cimo'o prali .ui