From @uga.cc.uga.edu:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Thu Dec 3 07:30:35 1992 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Thu, 3 Dec 1992 18:36:01 -0500 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 7789; Thu, 03 Dec 92 18:32:31 EST Received: from UGA.BITNET by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (Mailer R2.08 PTF008) with BSMTP id 0710; Thu, 03 Dec 92 18:31:53 EST Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1992 15:30:35 -0800 Reply-To: jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Sender: Lojban list From: jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Subject: Re: tanru semantics X-To: lojban@cuvmb.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 03 Dec 92 22:59:25 GMT." <9212032303.AA20821@julia.math.ucla.edu> Status: RO X-Status: Message-ID: And Rosta writes: > ... > If _wolf je man_ really means 'wolf-cum-man', how is this different > from _wolf man_? That is, _wolf-cum-man curse_ seems pretty > much the same as ((wolf man) curse), though of course not the > same as (wolf (man curse)). The essence of metaphor is in figuratively sparking off meanings outside the normal definitions of the component words. Any attempt to specify the precise meaning of metaphors spoils the whole process. Thus this whole debate about jeks seems counterproductive to me. I think people see patterns of definite meaning in Lojban tanru, and they are trying to nail down what that meaning is. In much more detail I have done this with dikyjvo. But dikyjvo, or nailed-down conjunctions, or whatever, are the antithesis of metaphors. A big complaint people had in the debate over dikyjvo was that the grammatical structure "tanru" was said in the rules to be semantically a metaphor, so how could it also be semantically a non-metaphor? I agree with this complaint; let's change the rules and require true metaphors to be specially indicated with a separate conjunction. I believe there really are definite rules inside tanru crying to get out, and they would substantially strengthen Lojban. To answer And's question, "je" means that you produce the meaning sets (or whatever you call them in Montague calculus) of two tanru terms and you take their intersection. In other words, it does the same kind of thing that ".e" does. The intersection then modifies the next tanru term the same as a single word might, metaphorically. Latinoid "X cum Y" might be interpreted as "basically X but having some characteristics of Y", which would come out as a Lojban metaphoric tanru "Y X", sort of. For "werewolf" I vote for "labno joi remna" i.e. a mixture of properties. As for "werewolf curse", in an ideal Lojban adapted to dikyjvo, "curse" would be defined with a place for what you're cursed to do, that attracts modifiers such as "werewolf", so a "werewolf curse" would unambiguously be a curse in which the victim would become a werewolf. -- jimc