Return-Path: Message-Id: <9110111657.AA20797@relay2.UU.NET> Date: Fri Oct 11 13:58:45 1991 Reply-To: cbmvax!uunet!MATH.UCLA.EDU!pucc.PRINCETON.EDU!jimc Sender: Lojban list From: cbmvax!uunet!MATH.UCLA.EDU!pucc.PRINCETON.EDU!jimc Subject: Re: cliva X-To: lojban@cuvmb.columbia.edu To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 10 Oct 91 18:59:05 EDT." <9110102357.AA16615@julia.math.ucla.edu> Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Fri Oct 11 13:58:45 1991 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Lojbab writes: > You fire a gun into the air. The bullet leaves the chamber. Where is > it 'going to'? Nowhere in particular. Hmmm, if you trace the trajectory it does in fact hit something eventually. Similarly for a drunk leaving a party by car :-). Only in some cosmic cases is there really never any end point, and this only if you believe in an infinite universe and a rather extreme definition of "never". Lojbab distinguishes between a relation of (mover, origin) versus (mover, destination, origin), saying that there are essentially different meanings and claims. Whereas I see the first alternative to be (mover, zo'e, origin) in which the speaker merely omits a destination which nonetheless necessarily exists. Thus I see cliva as a synonym of klama with zo'e provided for free. Similarly for several other word sets that differ only in which places are omitted. Should my view be adopted, I would see this as a strong argument to cancel the gismu status of cliva and similar synonyms. A major attraction of Lojban is that the gismu list is short, and it doesn't need these extras. In hard science we could appeal to observation: start tracing trajectories and see if any are endless (to the end of time, remember, after all the stars explode or burn out). But this argument is philosophical. How could it be resolved? -- jimc