From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Tue Jun 8 07:29:30 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Tue, 8 Jun 1993 12:10:21 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1788; Tue, 08 Jun 93 12:09:21 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 5410; Tue, 08 Jun 93 12:10:47 EDT Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1993 11:29:30 -0400 Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Re: observatives (was JimC on Colin on ....... ad nauseam) X-To: Lojban List To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: <9306080854.AA09071@relay1.UU.NET> from "Colin Fine" at Jun 8, 93 09:48:32 am X-Status: Status: OR Message-ID: la kolin. cusku di'e > But I had taken [the term "observative"] to have some special > semantic connotation (that > I've never been quite happy about) - perhaps an implied "ju'i" or "ko zgana > lenu". I suppose the word has now become a kind of metonymy -- certainly not every x1-less bridi is literally intended as being a Quine-style observation sentence like "Lo, a rabbit". However, it remains true, as jimc has said recently, that every bridi is intended to call the hearer's attention to something: either the fact of a relation, or something which bears a certain property. I do not, however, draw from this the same conclusions that he does about the propriety of using a simple sumti to call attention to its referent: the orthodox view remains that a simple sumti is radically incomplete and serves only conversational purposes such as answering "ma" questions. > The point I intended to make was that, though omission of the x1 was > facilitated to allow observatives in that latter sense, it is in fact being > used much more widely. True. In particular, true observation sentences are rare in writing, but are quite common in conversation. -- John Cowan cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban.