From jcowan@reutershealth.com Wed Sep 18 11:59:32 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: jcowan@reutershealth.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_1_1_3); 18 Sep 2002 18:59:31 -0000 Received: (qmail 48141 invoked from network); 18 Sep 2002 18:59:31 -0000 Received: from unknown (66.218.66.216) by m1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with QMQP; 18 Sep 2002 18:59:31 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mail2.reutershealth.com) (65.246.141.151) by mta1.grp.scd.yahoo.com with SMTP; 18 Sep 2002 18:59:31 -0000 Received: from skunk.reutershealth.com (IDENT:cowan@[10.65.117.21]) by mail2.reutershealth.com (Pro-8.9.3/Pro-8.9.3) with SMTP id PAA17506 for ; Wed, 18 Sep 2002 15:10:52 -0400 (EDT) Received: by skunk.reutershealth.com (sSMTP sendmail emulation); Wed, 18 Sep 2002 14:59:28 -0400 Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 14:59:28 -0400 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: I like chocolate Message-ID: <20020918145928.L1238@skunk.reutershealth.com> References: <19d.8e35557.2ab9e5d9@aol.com> <20020918151032.GA7613@allusion.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20020918151032.GA7613@allusion.net>; from lojban-out@lojban.org on Wed, Sep 18, 2002 at 10:10:32AM -0500 From: John Cowan X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=8122456 X-Yahoo-Profile: john_w_cowan On Wed, Sep 18, 2002 at 10:10:32AM -0500, Jordan DeLong wrote: > Furthermore, though the word order leads to different likely interpretation > it doesn't change the possible meanings. > ro da prami de > Can mean "Everyone loves >=one other (the same) person" just as much as it > can mean "Everyone loves someone (else)". In fact it means neither: it means "Everyone loves some person(s), possibly different person(s) for each or even themselves." When sumti appear in a bridi with no prenex, their scope is uniformly left-to-right. Unless you mean that the Lojban statement is entailed by either English sentence, which is certainly true. > I was discussing this point with some people on IRC a while back, and > bunk I say! bunk! Of course unicorns exist: they're concepts. Not at all. The concept of a unicorn is a concept, and it exists, just as the concept of a horse exists. Otherwise we are in the position of saying that horses are animals, but unicorns are concepts, which is very ugly. > I say {mi djica lenu lo pavyseljirna cu klama ti} there's nothing wrong > with the bridi, as I really do desire that su'o lo ro pavyseljirna > come (even if ro = 0; the su'o is just the number I'm wanting). There *is* nothing wrong, because nu-events exist even if the things inside don't. But lo pavyseljirna cu blabi, "some unicorn is white", that's rubbish. > Additionally, certainly you can dream a unicorn klama do, as unicorns > *do* exist in dreams. With: > da poi pavyseljirna zo'u mi senva ledu'u da klama mi > says "there is a unicorn such that I dreamt it came to me". That claim is false. A true claim would be: mi senva ledu'u lo pavyseljirna da klama mi which puts the unicorn firmly inside the context of a proposition. (Here comes Bernard J. Ortcutt, pillar of the community and possible spy.) -- John Cowan jcowan@reutershealth.com www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com "If I have not seen as far as others, it is because giants were standing on my shoulders." --Hal Abelson