Return-Path: Message-Id: <9110211324.AA19880@relay1.UU.NET> Date: Tue Oct 22 01:58:36 1991 Reply-To: "61510::GILSON" Sender: Lojban list From: "61510::GILSON" Subject: Place structures X-To: lojban To: John Cowan , Ken Taylor Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Tue Oct 22 01:58:36 1991 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!cuvma.bitnet!LOJBAN Lojbab writes: - On necessary places (Gilson, after others): >Bruce writes: >>Now I think I finally see what disturbs me. Whenever a gismu has its >>place structures baselined, the decision has been made for all time what >>are the essential components. If the place structures for "xunre" and >>"blanu" do not include "under illumination xn" (n = whatever) then the >>consensus of lojbanists who accepted it do not -- to _my_ eyes -- accept >>the reality of the fact that perceived colors depend on the light >>source. An apple may be black under the blue-violet lights used to >>cause fluorescence, yellow under a sodium-vapor lamp, and red under >>sunlight. On the other hand, since "klama" has the 5 places that were >>given previously, I am _forced_ to imply that those places are important >>enough to think about, _even_ if (by using "fa" type particles or >>"zo'e") I omit those places. Sorry, but to me this is a _serious_ >>weakness. It still allows Lojban as a SWH test -- in fact may very well >>make it even _more_ useful as a SWH test, but it makes Lojban very much >>less useful as a means of communication. >Funny. I can talk about whether an apple is red in English without >specifying the illumination. To the average person in normal usage, >scientific fact notwithstanding, "red" does not involve illumination, >and the average person can judge truth or falsity without caring about >illumination. And I can talk about "coming" in English without all the places of Lojban "klama." Most of the time when I use "come" or "go" I don't specify the means of transport any more than I specify the light source in describing colors. But I see that the two are either both necessary to consider or both unnecessary. >As above, if it expresses a different relation, it is a different >predicate, hence a different word in Lojban. The only real question >that should be involved here is whether the words should both be gismu. >But as I said in my glossary posting, gismu are not 'primitive' in >Lojban - the set is selected for pragmatic reasons including historical >compatibility and usefulness in making compounds (lujvo). I presume that the average Lojbanist does not have the right to coin gismu and therefore, if I want to use a word for a predicate that does not include the x3 place of a 4-place predicate, it has to be a lujvo. I do not, however, see how to go about that, when what I am doing is not a real modification of meaning in the way that a tanru is, but a restriction in scope in the sense I'm talking about. Bruce