From jjllambias@hotmail.com Sun Sep 15 12:41:22 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: jjllambias@hotmail.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_1_3); 15 Sep 2002 19:41:21 -0000 Received: (qmail 93810 invoked from network); 15 Sep 2002 19:41:21 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.218) by m9.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 15 Sep 2002 19:41:21 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO hotmail.com) (216.33.241.192) by mta3.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 15 Sep 2002 19:41:21 -0000 Received: from mail pickup service by hotmail.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC; Sun, 15 Sep 2002 12:41:21 -0700 Received: from 200.69.6.50 by lw8fd.law8.hotmail.msn.com with HTTP; Sun, 15 Sep 2002 19:41:21 GMT To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Bcc: Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: I like chocolate Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 19:41:21 +0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 15 Sep 2002 19:41:21.0564 (UTC) FILETIME=[DE4295C0:01C25CEF] From: "Jorge Llambias" X-Originating-IP: [200.69.6.50] X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=6071566 X-Yahoo-Profile: jjllambias2000 la pycyn cusku di'e >I have some idea what your boa is like, but I can't paint a reliable >picture >of it yet because too many things I need to know to do a picture I don't >know >from knowing only that it is a boa. Then you can't make lo pixra be le mi sincrboa, but you won't have any trouble making lo pixra be lo'e sincrboa. There are of course many possible pixra be lo'e sincrboa, and they don't have to all look alike. >Having a delusion is coverd by the usually safe {mi viska li'i sincrboa} I suppose you mean {se li'i}, "I'm a visual experiencer of something being a boa". >(this also covers the {lo} case but does not entail it). Why is {lo'e} a >no-no? It is certainly not a no-no! {lo'e} is probably a yes-yes anywhere {lo} is, though neither entails the other. >If I can paint it, I can see it surely. Not always, but in the case of boas yes, certainly. > Either {lo'e cinfo cu xabju le >frike} means "if anything were a lion, it would live in Africa," which is >obviously false, And not what I mean. >or it means (I have to unpack some more) "In some world >there is something which is a lion and lives in Africa," which is -- in the >case of lions, but not of unicorns -- of little practical value over {lo >cinfo cu xabju le frike}. This is not what I mean either. I don't make any claim about lions in particular, neither in this nor in possible worlds. It's a claim about Africa in particular and lions in general. >The problem with {pixra} is that boahood pervades too few viusal >properties to allow a picture to be made, if it is at all representational >(and if it is not, anything goes and I have to take your word for what it >represents and by what coding, so almost any visual image will do and the >whole becomes really uninteresting). So you probably would not agree that Saint-Exupéry's picture is lo pixra be lo'e sincrboa poi ba'o tunlo lo xanto. You don't have to take _my_ word, you have to take the word of the speakers of the language in question: English in the case of "boa" and Lojban in the case of {sincrboa}, though for these words there shouldn't be much deviation from language to language, probably more variation within English itself. ><< >I never said {le nu lo sfofa cu co'e} deals with particular sofas. >I did say it deals with particular events. > >> >OK -- and how can there be a particular event involving sofas that does not >invlve a particular sofa? For example: {le nu mi nitcu lo'e sfofa cu purci} "My needing a sofa is in the past". le nu mi nitcu lo'e sfofa is a particular event involving sofas that does not involve a particular sofa. >Well, as I said, it is more like liking an experience, which seems less >problematic -- not that I see that much problem with liking an event, in >the >appropriate sense. I don't see any problem with liking an event. I think {mi nelci le nu da sfofa} is a perfectly legitimate thing to say. I just don't agree that {mi nelci lo'e sfofa} is equivalent to {mi nelci lo nu lo sfofa cu co'e}. They are both meaningful, but different. >Perhaps some of our discomfort with {nelci le nu lo sfofa >co'e} is that we read it as "I like the event of there being something >about >a sofa" rather than "I like something about sofas" which is a better bit of >English. I don't feel discomfort with {nelci le nu lo sfofa cu co'e}. I don't think {nelci tu'a lo sfofa} is wrong. I prefer {nelci lo'e sfofa} for "liking sofas". {tu'a sfofa} is much more ambiguous than {lo'e sfofa}. In some context {tu'a lo sfofa} could mean "doing it on the sofa" for example, something which {lo'e sfofa} cannot mean. >Using {tu'a} does not literally change the level of abstraction, since >everything is on the same level in Lojban. I think {fasnu} and {dacti} are not synonymous. To that extent at least nu-things are not at the same level as sofa-things. >And your case is ultimately >talking about the properties of a sofa, not about sofas I guess we will never agree about that. mu'o mi'e xorxes _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com