From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sat Mar 26 12:43:32 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sat, 26 Mar 2005 12:43:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.44) id 1DFI7x-0004pV-Ja for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sat, 26 Mar 2005 12:43:25 -0800 Received: from web81310.mail.yahoo.com ([206.190.37.85]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.44) id 1DFI7u-0004oO-UH for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sat, 26 Mar 2005 12:43:25 -0800 Message-ID: <20050326204252.96754.qmail@web81310.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [65.69.48.37] by web81310.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Sat, 26 Mar 2005 12:42:52 PST Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 12:42:52 -0800 (PST) From: John E Clifford Subject: [lojban] Re: Re[2]: tanru To: lojban-list@lojban.org In-Reply-To: 6667 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 9668 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: clifford-j@sbcglobal.net Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list --- Jorge Llambías wrote: > pc: > > First, {mutce} is "x1 is > > extreme in property x2 in direction x3" so it > is > > unclear whether the elephant is extrme in > eating > > too much or in eating too little. > > Very much or very little, because {mutce} > doesn't indicate > excess, that would be {dukse}. Right. In the context the excess seemed to be intended -- and it is easier to say in English. > I have never seen {mutce} used in the sense of > "very little" > though, and if someone uses it with that sense > it's very likely > they will be misunderstood. I don't know why > the two senses > were conflated in the same word. I always use > {toltce/tolmutce} > for "very little". What's the point of having > one word (and an > extremely frequent one too) with two such > opposite senses? But, of course, {mutce} doesn't have two opposite senses. It may be that one direction has become the default or is taken as being implicated in most context (all unmarked?), but that still doesn't make it the *meaning* of {mutce}. The meaning is "x1 is at an extreme in property x2" and so on. Now, why we have that notion rather than "very much" and "very little" is another question, which I expect has something to do with the occasional emergence of "semantic primes" thinking in the construction of the vocabulary. Or, of course, comes from "very" (and the like in other languages) which can extend in any direction towards an extreme. > > Second, I am not clear just what > > the *property* of eating is or how it can be > > extreme. One expects to see an event > description > > here in most cases. > > If you use an event in the x2 of mutce, what do > you put in the x1? > > All the degree words (mutce, milxe, dukse, > traji) and the comparison > words (dunli, frica, zmadu, mleca) require a > property. Well, yes; if you take these words as comparatives then our IE habits are going to make what are compared (though not -- in many cases , including {mutce} -- with anything in particular) adjectival, i.e. properties. Looking at the the realities with a different set of filters, what is involved is -- as noted -- quantities (of qualities, to be sure, but that seems to be an idiom in metaphysical analysis): what is extreme is how much or how often he eats. I would be happy to use {lo ni citka} here as well. There may even be differences depending on which we use. As noted, I have some trouble thinking of eating as a property and most especially as a proprty that of itself can be comparative or superlative, etc.: "He very eats" -- even "He extremely eats" -- doesn't compute out to anything in any literal way and as an idion makes most sense as being about amounts of eating (in one reading or another). > > Still, I would feel safer with {poi dukse le > nu > > citka}, "who eats too much." > > I would use {lo ka [ce'u] citka}, either with > {mutce} or {dukse}. > > If you put {le nu citka} in x2, how do you know > what role the x1 > of mutce/dukse plays in that event? Presumably as subject, just as it would with {ka} -- or {ni} for that matter. And we have said nothing about the kinds of extreme -- in eating say -- that *don't* deal with quantities: eating chocolate-covered grasshoppers, for example, or raw mokey brains scooped out of the skull which is sliced off at the table. those would seem to call for 9indirect questions in the second what "is extreme in what he eats" or even, "in that he eats ..." (both of which look to be moving toward events or at least propositions. Maybe when BPFK gerts around to vocabulary word like this need a second look.