Message-Id: <199308142015.AA19499@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Sat, 14 Aug 1993 16:13:45 EDT
Reply-To: Jorge LLambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Jorge LLambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: mi ca ca'o jimpe lei me zo za'o
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: O

i mi no'e birti jinvi lu mi ca ca'o jimpe lei me zo za'o li'u


>
> I am not correcting what I said in my last posting abou ZAhOs
> and existence. There isn't much need for that. But know I think
> I can tell where all the trouble lies.

I think I'm seeing it more clearly too.


> The trouble is -- to put it bluntly -- that Lojban and English
> are very different languages which makes it necessary to go
> into lengthy explanations which then get mixed up with the
> essence.

I wouldn't despair of explaining things in English. After all
it is a rather versatile language. And don't forget that we are
thinking in Finnish and Spanish as well, plus all the other
languages that you may know.


> ZAhOs are a prime example. The English tense system
> has no equivalents to ZAhOs. Well, almost none. I think that
> 'I am coming' is rather near to 'mi ca'o klama'.
>
> Statements using ZAhOs talk about states and when we try to
> explain these statements in English we reformulate them in
> terms of events -- but they ARE NOT statements about events,
> they are statements about states, more specifically states
> of the sumti.
>

When you say "states of the sumti", it is difficult to know whether
you mean the x1 sumti or all of the sumti. I think it can't be the
x1 sumti, because {da broda de} has to mean the same as {de se broda da}
So it has to be the state of all (or each) of the sumti. But the
predication refers to a relationship between these sumti, which, if
you want, can be said to give a state to each of the sumti.

The za'o, give an additional property to this "relationship", or bridi.

I think that the bridi+sumti(s) describe an event, and the ZAhOs give
the status of the event: ongoing, "you can smell it in the air" (because
it's over or about to happen), starting, ceasing, being interrupted,
starting to resume, keeping-on-going-after-it-should-have-stopped, etc.

Does the statement with a ZAhO say something about the state of its sumti,
or about the state of the relationship between them? Maybe it is equivalent,
given that the existence of the sumti is not really the issue.


> A statement like "ko'a ba'o klama" is NOT a predication about
> "le nu ko'a klama" -- it IS a predication about "ko'a" which
> says simply '*he is in the state of having come" or "he is in
> the aftermath of his coming".

And what does {zo'e ba'o se klama ko'a} mean?
"Some place is in the state of having been come to by ko'a" or
"Some place is in the aftermath of its having been come to by ko'a"
But it should mean the same as {ko'a ba'o klama}.

I agree that to say "the event of {ko'a}'s coming is over" is not the
full meaning, because the event is over but somehow lingers on, but
it is still the event, or the relationship between the sumti, and not
the sumti themselves.


> It is a predication about ko'a
> but makes NO existential claim about him. There are always
> predications which can be made -- at least "le dacti ca na
> zasti" which clearly doesn't claim that the object exists.
>

Yes, I now think that the existence is not the issue. However, the
predication is not about the state of ko'a, but about the state
of the relationhip between the sumti. (Maybe this is equivalent
when only one sumti is stated, but I'm not too sure.)

> This is the essence.
>
>    co'o mi'e veion
>
co'o mi'e xorxes