I seem to have missed= something here. Is the question whether different sorts of things ca= n be mentioned as objects of desires or portrayal or evaluation? To a= fairly large extent, the answer is obviously "Yes!". More readily in= some cases than in others: desires and needs, for example, are for t= hings that fit into a causal narrative and so pretty much have to be events= ; pictures pretty much range over all possible categories (in a broad sense= of "picture" of course, as is usual in art), seeking is limited (perhaps) = to the concrete (although answers seem to be an exception).
In an= y case, I doubt that this is the problem. What is usually the problem= here is that sometimes the predicates of this sort take arguments that cre= ate an intensional context and sometimes not. And the reason for that is simply that sometimes the arguments involve reference to things in= the external world and sometime not. A picture of USS Constitution b= attling HMS Seraphis sets up different logical expectations from a picture = of just two frigates fighting, namely that there are, outside the world of = the picture, two ships who might be in this battle, whereas there is no suc= h certainty in the second case. And, in a logical language, this need= s to be reflected, somehow, in the presentation. The present system d= oesn't do this very well (the inchoate Xorban seems to be a bit better, but= it is still too illformed to be sure), but it at least warns one to be war= y about the twin no-nos of quantifying in and interchange of identicals.&nb= sp;

= From: Jacob Errington <= ;nictytan@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Se= nt: Sunday, September 23, 2012 11:07 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Cowan's summary: opa= city and sumti-raising

I dislike multiple types in pretty much any place.= I don't personally believe that love can apply to events, but obviously, t= hat's arguable. People are going to use the language the way they want, bec= ause at this point there're no stone tablets with the rules really written = onto them. I don't even think that it's useful at this point to try convinc= ing people of what's right and wrong with the language. It's like a religio= us debate.

.i mi'e la tsani mu'o

On 23 September 2012 01:12, la gleki <gleki.is.my.name@gmail.com> wrote:

<= br>
On Saturday, September 22, 2012 9:53:23 PM UTC+4, tsani wrote: The thing about {cirko} is that it may or may not have to deal with possess= ion. It has a sort of possession focus, but if you're using it with propert= ies, then that just falls apart: {.i mi cirko lo ka pampe'o do}
Really, it's just co'u, but when used on a concrete sumti, it has the impli= cation of losing possession. I'm not too fond of this duality.

Are you fond of lo selpa'i duality being bo= th an object and an abstraction? May be we should say {mi prami tu'a do} al= l the time?

.i mi'e la tsani mu'o

On 22 September 2012 12:53, Ian Johnson <blindb...@gmail.com> wrote:
I consider {cirko} to have similar issues to {binxo}; if it's going to have= anything to do with properties, it should always have to do with propertie= s, but since properties are just predicates in my usage, {binxo} is essenti= ally redundant to {co'a}. {cirko} as only having to do with {co'u ponse} wo= uld be fine, but if it has to do with a property then it is again redundant= to just {co'u}.

The rest are straightforwardly fine, to me; things like {melbi} fall in= to a general category of "pre-jai'd" gismu, which are a bit odd but useful = and pe'i consistent.

mu'o mi'e la latro'a

On Sat, Sep 22, 2012 at 9:18 AM, la gleki <gleki.is...@gmail.com> wrote:

I should make my point more clear.

Look at the following= .

prami x1 loves/feels strong affectionate de= votion towards x2 (object/state).
dirba x1 is dear/precious/= darling to x2; x1 is emotionally valued by x2; x1 may be a specific object, a commodity (mass), an event, or a property

pluka x1 (event/state) seems pleasant to/pleases x2 under c= onditions x3.
melbi x1 is beautiful/pleasant to x2 in = aspect x3 (ka) by aesthetic standard x4.

And last = but not least

cirko -cri- x1 loses person/thing x2 at/near x3; x1 loses pr= operty/feature x2 in conditions/situation x3; x2 may be a specific = object, a commodity (mass), an event (rare for cirko), or a property= .

This last example shows something mutce lo ka = cizra.

If we can easily interchange object= s and abstractions in {lo se prami, lo dirba, lo se cirko} omitting {tu'a} = then it would be reasonable to ask:

"What the hell is {tu'a} for?" If lojban is not cons= istent in using it at all, why not omit it all the time?
<= br>
Then we'll get those {mi sisku lo penbi} (in la sel= pa'i 's dialect) and even {mi djica lo plise}.

On Monday, August 20, 2012 12:46:15 PM UTC+4, = la gleki wrote:
Ag= ain Google Groups didn't let me resurrect this old discussion. So please follow the link to follow the whole d= iscussion.

And now it's my turn to ask the community once again af= ter 18 years of disinterest.

{djica}, {nitcu} and {sis= ku}, for example, have all been

dealt with differently: {djica} only accepts events, {nitcu} still acc= epts
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 prope= rty
of said thing.

Why not treat them all the same?

The transparent case:

{mi djica lo tanxe} =3D "T= here is a box wanted by me"

{mi nitcu lo tanxe} =3D "There is a box needed by me"
{mi si= sku lo tanxe} =3D "There is a box sought by me"

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

On Tuesday, November 22, 1994 4:03:33 AM UTC+4, Jorge Llambias wro= te:
la lojbab cusku di'e
> Of course there is nothing strange about a br= ivla relating two objects - a
> seeker and the thing known-and-sought= -after, and having a certain predicate
> relating them. The pro= blem that I see is that there is more than one such
> predicate, and the choice is dependent on the specificity (or is= that
> definiteness %^) of x2 vs. its opacity, etc., and what the de= sire is of the
> seeker for the final state after finding.
= The problem is transparency vs opacity. Transparent references can be
specific or nonspecific, and that can be marked with the appropriate
qua= ntifiers, but we don't have any way to mark explicitly opaque references.
The other properties that you mention, like desires of the seeker = for what
to do after (or rather if) the sought after thing is found, are not really<= br>to the point. If you want a place for them I guess you do need a lujvo.<= /div>
Also, in English, the meaning of "seek an object" has been genera= lized
to "seek knowledge", where by "finding it", we mean that we get to
know = the truth value of some utterance. (I suppose that's what you call the
s= eeking of science.) I don't have a problem with letting this metaphorical extension into Lojban, but in any case this is not part of the opaque probl= em.
An interesting property of sisku as it is defined now, is tha= t the lambda
variable of its property really never takes a value. Normal= ly, the lambda
variable of a property corresponds to one or more of the places of the
s= elbri (for example for {zmadu}, it's the x1 and x2) but for sisku, thereis 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 w= hether
{citno} means "young", so that it only refers to living things, o= r whether
it is more general. Would an "old car" in lojban be a {tolcitn= o karce} or
a {tolcnino karce}?
> In all such casesa we have learned to li= ve with the
> fact that the English word is tto broad and have come u= p with lujvo for the
> alternative meanings. Such lujvo can alw= ays exist, and if this whole
> issue of "lo" and "existence" blows away. the number of distinctions w= e need
to
> make may be reduced. But I remain unconvin= ced of this - as pc said a while
> back in this discussion - there ar= e some predicates that embody a hidden
> abstraction involving one of the sumti, and we have to live with this<= /div>
What do you mean by "some predicates"? English verbs, like "want"= , "need",
"look for", etc, or Lojban predicates like {djica}, {nitcu}, {= sisku}, etc.?

I totally agree that the English verbs can accept opaque references as= direct
objects, without any marking. They also, in other contexts, can = take transparent
direct objects.
Because of the logical aspect= of Lojban, this can't work like that in Lojban,
and so the arguments are always transparent.
But, the fact is tha= t the opaque meaning is often very useful for these
predicates, so what = do we do?
I propose to find one solution for all such predicates,= rather than patches
for each of them. {djica}, {nitcu} and {sisku}, for example, have all been<= br>dealt with differently: {djica} only accepts events, {nitcu} still accep= ts
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 propertyof said thing.
Why not treat them all the same?
The t= ransparent 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 tanxe} =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 which)"
{m= i nitcu xe'e lo tanxe} =3D "I need a box (I don't care which)"
{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 sens= e
as well.)
As things stand now, for the transparent case I ha= ve to say:
{da poi tanxe zo'u mi djica tu'a da}
{mi nitcu lo tanxe}
{da poi tanxe zo'u mi sisku le ka du da}
W= hy so complicated?
> mi'e la lojbab= noi sisku loka lo danfu be le me zo sisku me'u nabmi
> = &nbs= p; 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 are say= ing that
you are looking for something with property an answer satisfies= everyone,
but what is it that you look for? the answer, everyone? I think this is an<= br>unnecessarily complicated way to deal with {sisku}.
Jorge

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