From melissa@fastanimals.com Fri Feb 27 10:43:05 2004 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Fri, 27 Feb 2004 11:29:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from [216.127.72.21] (helo=www.simlifecycle.com) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.30) id 1Awmwz-0000Ge-A3 for lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org; Fri, 27 Feb 2004 10:43:05 -0800 Received: from localhost (melissa@localhost) by www.simlifecycle.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id i1RHxT825770 for ; Fri, 27 Feb 2004 11:59:29 -0600 Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 11:59:29 -0600 (CST) From: melissa@fastanimals.com X-X-Sender: melissa@www.simlifecycle.com To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-archive-position: 529 X-Approved-By: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org Subject: (no subject) X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-original-sender: melissa@fastanimals.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-list: lojban-beginners 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. If that is the case, what meaning would be taken from mi dunda ma ko It's part question and part command. 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." 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. Do any of these interpretations make sense? Is there a better interpretation? Or is this just a goofy statement with no real meaning? -- mylisys XOLynswyrt mi tadni la lojban