From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Wed Mar 17 11:25:40 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 17 Mar 1993 19:39:53 -0500 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1074; Wed, 17 Mar 93 19:38:44 EST Received: from CUVMB.BITNET by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 3501; Wed, 17 Mar 93 19:39:52 EST Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 16:25:40 -0500 Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Re: TECH: QUERY re cmene X-To: Lojban List To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: <9303171715.AA00915@relay1.UU.NET> from "jimc@math.ucla.edu" at Mar 17, 93 08:54:18 am Status: O Message-ID: la kartr. djim. cusku di'e > How do you recognize "name context"? I notice the "me'e". I > would say that this is the "name tense", e.g. > > ko'a me'e tirxu > [He] is Tiger Nope. "me'e" means "me'e zo'e", i.e. "associated-with-name something-unspec". So "ko'a me'e tirxu" means "It1 is a tiger who has a name", but the name isn't given. There is no "name tense", in the sense of "BAI or similar cmavo which changes a predicate to a name predicate". To make a description into a name-argument, use "la"; to make a name-argument into a predicate, use "me". > Then I would interpret "la" as an abbreviation for "le me'e", e.g. > > la tirxu == le me'e tirxu More like: le se cmene lu tirxu li'u that-described-as-something named [quote] tiger [unquote] In fact, every use of names can be transformed so that the names appear only in quotations. -- John Cowan cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban.