From @uga.cc.uga.edu:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Sat Sep 19 10:27:10 1992 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Sat, 19 Sep 1992 10:27:09 -0400 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 8884; Sat, 19 Sep 92 10:25:58 EDT Received: by UGA (Mailer R2.08 PTF008) id 9243; Sat, 19 Sep 92 10:25:56 EDT Date: Sat, 19 Sep 1992 02:48:08 -0400 Reply-To: "(Logical Language Group)" Sender: Lojban list From: "(Logical Language Group)" Subject: Re: TECH.QUERY: zo bancu cu mo zo zmadu leka smuni X-To: shoulson@CTR.COLUMBIA.EDU X-Cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch Status: O X-Status: Message-ID: The question between zmadu and bancu is NOT the x3 place, which they share, but the x4 place that they don't. I am not sure that your version of the statement using zmadu is as clear as the same statement using bancu. The x4 place that you did not supply may not be meaningful, even if there is a way to define its value (certainly mathematicians/geometers can tell how much more distant the tree is from you than the fence. But the essential claim is that the tree is on the other side of the fence and not that it is more distant from you than the fence. Hmm. Indeed, the fence might be in a different direction from you than the tree, and closer to you, and the s statement involving zmadu would be true, but not the statement involving bancu. Thus bancu ==> zmadu but not necessarily vice versa. So there are two criteria: relevance of the x4 place to the claim, and this latter implication distinction, that would seem to differ between the two. As to WHY we have both mleca and zmadu: because people make conceptual distinctions in each direction. If one is a gismu and the other is the se conversion, then we have to pick one as being more basic or primitive, and in this case we can clearly see usages where choosing one as more basic than the other would affect the way we look at things (not to mention Zipfian considerations). Similarly, I think that bancu emphasizes a different semantic aspect than zmadu even the places were identical. You could use semantic minimalism arguments to eliminate half of the gismu, if not more. (do we need sister and brother as opposed to male/female sibling; similar arguments for the other family relationships based on gender, and also in the case of parents, on the distinction between blood-relationship and parental relationship. If you do not see a lot of difference between zmadu and bancu, you can of c course try to use zmadu all of the time and bancu might go away. But I suspoect that you willfind a time when zmadu does not convey the sense that you want - being on the other side of something - that bancu does, and the fact that being on the other side implies that there is a property that can be more-than for le bancu is not sufficiently specific. lojbab