From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Fri Sep 3 01:48:34 1993 Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Fri, 3 Sep 1993 11:48:12 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Fri, 3 Sep 1993 11:48:08 -0400 Message-Id: <199309031548.AA05811@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 8994; Fri, 03 Sep 93 11:46:36 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 4383; Fri, 03 Sep 93 11:49:11 EDT Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1993 08:48:34 -0700 Reply-To: jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Sender: Lojban list From: jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Subject: Re: TECH: Mark Shoulson waiting for a taxi X-To: lojban@cuvmb.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: Your message of "Fri, 03 Sep 93 14:06:01 BST." <9309031310.AA03538@julia.math.ucla.edu> Status: RO X-Status: Mr Andrew Rosta writes about Mark Shoulson's taxi: > If I remember right (probably not), a (long) while back Mark > wrote about waiting for a taxi - any taxi - to come along. Since > the taxi is non-specific, this rules out use of the le-series > - le karcrtaksi, lei karcrtaksi. > But "lo karcrtaksi" doesn't seem quite right, if it means > "there is some taxi such that M.S. was waiting for it" - > it suggests that a taxi for which Mark was not waiting could > have come along... Hmm, the specific vs. definite debate again, to which I am somewhat blind. Translating, using klode'a = diklo denpa = x1 waits for x2 to be in the vicinity, which may not be sufficient for taxis: la mark. cu klode'a lo karcrtaksi Here's how an anthropologist could verify this statement: Waiting (for a transport means) ends when the journey resumes. If on the arrival of any taxi (= the first taxi) Mark gets in it, the statement was true, he was waiting for something that really is a taxi. On the other hand, if he rejects some taxis and gets in a specific one (do I mean a definite one?), the statement is still true for the same reason. But if he gets into a bus, he must have been waiting for a bus (or a generalized vehicular transport means), not a taxi specifically, and the statement is false. I'm blind to the issues in this debate because Lojban/Loglan articles are not really defined so as to express the definite/specific distinction. They're defined to express the in-mind vs. really-is vs. proper-name distinction. An in-mind sumti can be specific or not, definite or not, just as can be a really-is sumti or a named individual. -- jimc