From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Wed Aug 17 17:30:50 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Wed, 17 Aug 2005 17:40:49 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.52) id 1E5YJ0-0006Y9-4O for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Wed, 17 Aug 2005 17:30:50 -0700 Received: from zproxy.gmail.com ([64.233.162.204]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.52) id 1E5YIv-0006Y2-UA for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Wed, 17 Aug 2005 17:30:49 -0700 Received: by zproxy.gmail.com with SMTP id x7so213898nzc for ; Wed, 17 Aug 2005 17:30:44 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=lreUlwNVFyeaVAkemF4GilYhq7BZbTXYMlwApeTQGjKG9ja8nWNmZaeBrCkIGo/v6Tj/yOdj6Jslm+ThP7R8bGhuLluVKEopKMwcvYhF0FBZ6via+0SVrRGDQN4aqQsdBthEOsCWYNF2nG1ZVGE/nNfX0jqJkz0YhTnbzNgYCsg= Received: by 10.37.12.9 with SMTP id p9mr114550nzi; Wed, 17 Aug 2005 17:30:44 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.36.67.6 with HTTP; Wed, 17 Aug 2005 17:30:44 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <737b61f305081717303fa5020a@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 17 Aug 2005 19:30:44 -0500 From: Chris Capel To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Fwd: Re: alice questions In-Reply-To: <737b61f305081711526ca8117c@mail.gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis Content-Disposition: inline References: <737b61f30508141443b15fcc7@mail.gmail.com> <925d17560508161657244f2bb8@mail.gmail.com> <737b61f305081620163df3b83b@mail.gmail.com> <925d175605081706303f355307@mail.gmail.com> <737b61f305081711526ca8117c@mail.gmail.com> X-Spam-Score: -2.5 (--) X-archive-position: 1772 X-Approved-By: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org 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: pdf23ds@gmail.com Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org X-list: lojban-beginners For some reason, my posts to this list are getting eaten. This is the second post that I've had to remail. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Chris Capel Date: Aug 17, 2005 1:52 PM Subject: Re: [lojban-beginners] Re: alice questions To: lojban-beginners@chain.digitalkingdom.org On 8/17/05, Jorge Llambías wrote: > On 8/17/05, Chris Capel wrote: > > Well, what I was getting at was, why is the {se} necessary, and why > > doesn't it change the meaning to "pink body with eyes"? > Wouldn't {poi > > xunblabi kanla} mean "pink eyed" or "with pink eyes"? > > {lo blabi ractu poi xunblabi kanla ke'a} would mean that. > But when {ke'a} is not explicit, the most common > interpretation is that it fills the first empty slot, so my > first take on {lo blabi ractu poi xunblabi kanla} might > be "a white rabbit which is a pink eye", i.e. > {lo blabi ractu poi ke'a xunblabi kanla}. > > The intent was {lo blabi ractu poi [ke'a] xunblabi se kanla}. Ah, yes, I see now how it's important to have the x2 of kanla as the place where ke'a goes, even implicitly. (In fact, that occurred to me shortly after I sent the message.) And I guess that's more important than having an obvious tanru. So here's one last question on this. Is the tanru sense of {xunblabi kanla} and {xunblabi se kanla} the same, vagueness and all, out of context of this bridi? Or is it the case that the first would be preferred because the intended interpretation is more obvious, but the second allows that interpretation as well, and so is permissible, but less obvious? In other words, does {se kanla} suggest (even if it doesn't compel) that {xunblabi} is talking about the x2 of {kanla} instead of x1? > > > I don't see a problem with {poi} here. It restricts the sense of {blabi ractu} > > > to just those that have pink eyes. > > > > It feels uncomfortable to me because the restrictive sense doesn't > > seem to be adding any information, and as a listener I would wonder > > whether I were missing some subtlety that required the {poi} to > > communicate something. > > {poi} would be strange if we already had {lo blabi ractu} > identified, but if I remember right this is the first time it appears, > so I don't see a problem with making the eyes part of the > identification information. What else could it communicate? > When would you use {poi}? Speaking as a newbie, I would use {poi} when the additional information would help to disambiguate the intended reference of the restricted sumti. This might be my misunderstanding of {poi}, though. In this case, since there's only one obvious intended reference here, {lo ractu poi bajra zo'a la alis}, there's nothing to be disambiguated. Taking out the poi clause takes out the information that the referent of {lo ractu} has pink eyes. It doesn't change what the reader sees as the referent. There is only one rabbit in the story. Or do you mean that {bajra zo'a la alis} isn't taken into consideration as far as the referent of the sumti assumed in the subordinate clause goes, but only the sumti itself? That, I can't imagine. > (There is also a difference between {lo broda noi brode [ku]} > and {lo broda ku noi brode}. To use {noi} here would require > a {ku} otherwise we would be saying that white rabbits > have pink eyes irrespective of this white rabbit in particular. How's that? {lo ractu} in itself doesn't mean {ro ractu}. And a {noi} can't assign a quality to a referent that the sumti doesn't already include itself, can it? That would just be strange. This seems to relate to your comment just previous. > I don't know that I want to insist on this (mis?)feature of {noi}, > but it probably influenced me at the time. See > > for more than you probably want to know.) That's a lot to wade through, sure nuff. Sorry if this is getting a bit OT. If you think I should read the CLL more thoroughly and then come back, go ahead and say so. I'm willing to admit that my confusion might go away with a more thorough understanding of the grammar. :-) Chris Capel -- "What is it like to be a bat? What is it like to bat a bee? What is it like to be a bee being batted? What is it like to be a batted bee?" -- The Mind's I (Hofstadter, Dennet)