I haven't = gone through the discussion in a while, so my memory (never at its best) ma= y have oversimplified and compressed the last few rounds. Lojban = ; decided that no argument place would be intensional (necessarily refer to= things that span possible worlds), since all such places do have extension= al (this world only) uses. The intensional effect was to be obtained = using intensional sumti, of which there are many available (nu, ka, du'u, e= tc. predicates). Although which intensional sumti was appropriate for= a given place was a matter of discussion, it was agreed (well, as much as = such things ever are here) that the focus in actual speech was usually on a= n object, a sumti within the larfer bridi within the argument to fill the s= lot. So, it was decided to abbreviate the whole surrounding bridi to just {tu'a} -- it already would typically have had just a dummy p= redicate anyhow. What the actual abstractor was in each case was not = generally relevant (the suggestion that they were all ultimately {du'u} nev= er got much traction), except when the term was taken out quantificationall= y. So, the different "restrictions" were, in fact, all treated as as = the same. I suppose, it is occasionally the case that one actually wa= nts to use the full form -- as when what one wants is not, say, merely a gi= rl but explicitly to be dancing with a girl. But then it will be foun= d that the recommended abstractions are appropriate.

I will be interested (since I am not going to dig back through = all this, running 30-odd years in my notes) to see what the present situati= on is different from that moment of consensus.

From:<= /span> la gleki <gleki.is.my.name@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2012 3:4= 6 AM
Subject: [lojban]= Cowan's summary: opacity and sumti-raising

Again Google Groups didn't let me resurrect = this old discussion. So please foll= ow the link to follow the whole discussion.

And no= w it's my turn to ask the community once again after 18 years of disinteres= t.

{djica}, {nitcu} and {sisku}, for example, have all= been
dealt with differently: {djica} only accepts events, {nitcu= } still accepts
objects, and the solution for {sisku} was the wei= rdest: the x2 place was
directly eliminated and replaced by only = a property of some inaccesible
entity, so that {le se sisku} is n= ot the thing looked for, but a property
of said thing.
=
Why not treat them all the same?

The transparent case:

{mi djica lo tanxe} =3D "There is a box wanted by me"
{mi= nitcu lo tanxe} =3D "There is a box needed by me"
{mi sisku lo t= anxe} =3D "There is a box sought by me"

One more moment. Are there any other gismu that have the same "problem"?=

On Tuesday, November 22, 1994 4:03:33 AM UTC+4, Jorge = Llambias wrote:

la lojbab cusku di'e
&g= t; Of course there is nothing strange about a brivla relating two objects -= a
> seeker and the thing known-and-sought-after, and having a certai= n predicate
> relating them. The problem that I see is that the= re is more than one such
> predicate, and the choice is dependent on = the specificity (or is that
> definiteness %^) of x2 vs. its opaci= ty, etc., and what the desire is of the
> seeker for the final state = after finding.
The problem is transparency vs opacity. Transparen= t references can be
specific or nonspecific, and that can be marked with= the appropriate
quantifiers, but we don't have any way to mark explicit= ly opaque references.
The other properties that you mention, like= desires of the seeker for what
to do after (or rather if) the sought af= ter thing is found, are not really
to the point. If you want a place for= them I guess you do need a lujvo.
Also, in English, the meaning = of "seek an object" has been generalized
to "seek knowledge", where by "= finding it", we mean that we get to
know the truth value of some utteran= ce. (I suppose that's what you call the
seeking of science.) I don't hav= e a problem with letting this metaphorical
extension into Lojban, but in any case this is not part of the opaque problem.
An inter= esting property of sisku as it is defined now, is that the lambda
variab= le of its property really never takes a value. Normally, the lambda
vari= able of a property corresponds to one or more of the places of the
selbr= i (for example for {zmadu}, it's the x1 and x2) but for sisku, there
is = no place for the thing being sought, so there is no place that fits the
= lambda variable.
> WE have other cases in Lojban where the Loj= ban word covers a misleading
> subset of the English meanings of the = keywords ("old" and "know" being two
> cases that come to mind).
BTW, because of my mail problems a month or so ago I never found out = whether
{citno} means "young", so that it only refers to living things, = or whether
it is more general. Would an "old car" in lojban be a {tolcit= no karce} or
a {tolcnino karce}?
> In all such casesa we have learned to live with the
> fact that the English word= is tto broad and have come up with lujvo for the
> alternative meani= ngs. Such lujvo can always exist, and if this whole
> issue of = "lo" and "existence" blows away. the number of distinctions we need
&nbs= p;to
> make may be reduced. But I remain unconvinced of this - = as pc said a while
> back in this discussion - there are some predica= tes that embody a hidden
> abstraction involving one of the sumti, an= d we have to live with this
What do you mean by "some predicates"= ? English verbs, like "want", "need",
"look for", etc, or Lojban predica= tes like {djica}, {nitcu}, {sisku}, etc.?
I totally agree that th= e English verbs can accept opaque references as direct
objects, without = any marking. They also, in other contexts, can take transparent
direct o= bjects.
Because of the logical aspect of Lojban, this can't work like that in Lojban,
and so the arguments are always transpa= rent.
But, the fact is that the opaque meaning is often very usef= ul for these
predicates, so what do we do?
I propose to find o= ne solution for all such predicates, rather than patches
for each of the= m. {djica}, {nitcu} and {sisku}, for example, have all been
dealt with d= ifferently: {djica} only accepts events, {nitcu} still accepts
objects, = and the solution for {sisku} was the weirdest: the x2 place was
directly= eliminated and replaced by only a property of some inaccesible
entity, = so that {le se sisku} is not the thing looked for, but a property
of sai= d thing.
Why not treat them all the same?
The transpare= nt case:
{mi djica lo tanxe} =3D "There is a box wanted by me"{mi nitcu lo tanxe} =3D "There is a box needed by me"
{mi sisku lo tanx= e} =3D "There is a box sought by me"
and the opaque case:
{mi djica xe'e lo tanxe} =3D "I want a box (I don't care w= hich)"
{mi nitcu xe'e lo tanxe} =3D "I need a box (I don't care which)"<= br>{mi sisku xe'e lo tanxe} =3D "I seek a box (I don't care which)"
(I don't mind using {lo'e} instead of {xe'e lo}, I think it makes sense<= br>as well.)
As things stand now, for the transparent case I have= to say:
{da poi tanxe zo'u mi djica tu'a da}
{mi nitcu lo tan= xe}
{da poi tanxe zo'u mi sisku le ka du da}
Why so complicate= d?
> mi'e la lojbab noi sisku loka = lo danfu be le me zo sisku me'u nabmi
> &= nbsp; cu mansa roda=
That doesn't make much sense to me. You probably mean {noi sisku= lo ka danfu
le me zo sisku me'u nabmi gi'e mansa roda}, otherwise you a= re saying that
you are looking for something with property an answer satisfies everyone,
but what is it that you look for? the answer, every= one? I think this is an
unnecessarily complicated way to deal with {sisk= u}.
Jorge

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