Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Fri, 5 Jun 92 11:04 EDT Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA24650; Fri, 5 Jun 92 11:05:23 EDT Received: from pucc.Princeton.EDU by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA22057; Fri, 5 Jun 92 10:31:55 -0400 Message-Id: <9206051431.AA22057@relay1.UU.NET> Received: from PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU by pucc.Princeton.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 4623; Fri, 05 Jun 92 10:31:24 EDT Received: by PUCC (Mailer R2.08 ptf024) id 2260; Fri, 05 Jun 92 10:25:35 EDT Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1992 13:30:31 BST Reply-To: cbmvax!uunet!oasis.icl.co.uk!I.Alexander.bra0122 Sender: Lojban list From: cbmvax!uunet!OASIS.ICL.CO.UK!I.Alexander.bra0122 Subject: More Wind from the North X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann Status: RO X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Fri Jun 5 11:04:51 1992 X-From-Space-Address: cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN To: Nick S. Nicholas > Ivan on my NorWind thingy: > Alternate insights welcome. Excuse me butting in to this discussion. I'm fairly new to "le lojbo", and I've missed the start of the story, so I may be missing the point, But. Having now established my total lack of credentials, I'll now stick my neck out, and offer you my alternate insights. > la berbif. joi la sol. puki darlu lejei ri jikau ra vlimau le drata kei ki'a Neither this nor any of the alternatives given does anything for me. My copy of logdata3.lex says that "ji" indicates a question, and the truth value of a question seems moot, but then maybe that's how the language works. From gismu.lst, "darlu" means argue for...against...(obj./event idea) or from logdata.raw x1 argues for stand x2 against stand x3 which implies to me that "se darlu" should be a predication ("du'u"), not a truth value, which I imagine as being something I could e.g. know, but not a stand I could argue for. And we seem to have dug ourselves a hole by using "joi", and are struggling to get out of it. I don't really understand "kau", but I don't believe it affects the basic structure of the bridi, which seems to me totally confused. Why not use "fa'u", which gives: la berbif. fa'u la sol. puki darlu ledu'u leno'a vlimau le drata kei (Each) argues HE is stronger than the other. If this works, you can do the same with the twelve months, although you might want to stick "ro" on the front. But the fact that you've used "jei" suggests that maybe that's not quite what you were getting at. If you want them to argue *about* a topic, then surely you're better off using something based on "casnu", perhaps "darlu casnu" or "casnu.ienai". This gives us some new possibilities. (You might as well go back to "joi" now.) la berbif. joi la sol. casnu.ienai lejei da vlimau le drata kei (They) dispute WHETHER one is stronger than the other. Or perhaps you *were* talking about WHO is the stronger, but wanted them to argue *about* it. If, as the use of "ji" above suggest, it makes sense to make an abstraction from a question, then da casnu.ienai le du'u ma vlimau le drata kei They dispute WHO is stronger than the other. Or, another way of referring to the question: da casnu.ienai le preti po'u lu ma vlimau le drata li'u They dispute the question "Who is stronger than the other?" But why is it even as complicated as this? da casnu.ienai lo vlimau be le drata They dispute the one who is stronger than the other or da casnu.ienai de poi vlimau le drata They dispute x who-specifically-is stronger than the other Maybe not. This suggests that they know who is stronger, and are arguing about some other aspect of him, such as what he had for breakfast. The point in question is the *identity* of he-who-is-stronger. I tried various expressions to get at the concept of identity, such as "ka du" da casnu.ienai leka du de poi vlimau le drata kei They dispute the property of being equal to one who is stronger than the other which isn't very convincing, and "la'e" da casnu.ienai la'e lo vlimau be le drata They dispute the referent of "the one who is stronger than the other" but I doubt "la'e" works that way. But maybe this is where "kau" comes in. da casnu.ienai lokau vlimau be le drata or da casnu.ienai dekau poi vlimau le drata I think this last is my favourite - "da poi" mirrors what I'd expect to see in the context of symbolic logic. But wait a minute, shouldn't it be "kaunai"? Is it "kau" because they each think they know THEY are the stronger? Or "kaunai" because they haven't agreed it. I think if they're arguing about it, it's got to be "kaunai". And so, finally: la berbif. joi la sol. puki casnu.ienai dakaunai poi vlimau le drata co'omi'e .i,n .alegZANdr. Iain Alexander, ICL, Bracknell, U.K.