From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Mon Apr 1 08:05:28 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Mon, 29 Mar 1993 21:04:23 -0500 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 9702; Mon, 29 Mar 93 21:03:00 EST Received: from CUVMB.BITNET by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 5091; Mon, 29 Mar 93 21:03:58 EST Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 13:05:28 -0500 Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Re: TECH: grammar updates X-To: Lojban List To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: <10491.9303291026@ccw308.brad.ac.uk> from "C.J.Fine@bradford.ac.uk" at Mar 29, 93 11:26:28 am Status: OR Message-ID: la kolin. cusku di'e > > This pops up for me when I want to say something universal, but where the > > natural gismu seems to want an agent: "Living things are made from cells > > [by whom?]", "Set A can be divided into sets B and [jo'u] C [who does the > > dividing?]", etc. English gets away with a passive here, because the passive > > in English does not commit you to the existence of an agent; not so SE > > conversion, which does not eliminate any places. Without this gimmick, > > the only way to eliminate places is to make a lujvo and just say "This > > obnoxious place doesn't exist in this lujvo". But (as Nick rightly > > points out) there then needs to be a way to re-express the meaning of the > > lujvo in terms of a tanru. > > This is dangerous, because it lets malglico in by the back door. 'zbasu' has > a maker in its tergismu for good reason. If you don't happen to believe that > living things have a zbasu in their history, then it is not appropriate to > use 'zbasu'. The argument that 'ne'e zbasu' is a different selbri reeks of > sophistry, and looks to me like a way of avoiding thinking about what you > really mean. Probably true. However, I await your lujvo for "battery", as per Nick's concerns: a battery is a {sorcu}, but doesn't need a location; it is a {sorcu be fo ne'e}. BTW, I just noticed that an alternative to {ne'e} for this use would be {zi'a}, {zi'i}, {zi'o}, or {zi'u}, all recently freed with the abolition of ziheks. These would have the advantage of sharing an initial letter with {zo'e} and {zu'i}. Comments? -- John Cowan cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban.