From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Wed Sep 8 13:00:40 1993 Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 8 Sep 1993 07:02:07 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 8 Sep 1993 07:02:03 -0400 Message-Id: <199309081102.AA01525@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 6019; Wed, 08 Sep 93 07:00:27 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 9601; Wed, 08 Sep 93 07:03:19 EDT Date: Wed, 8 Sep 1993 12:00:40 +0100 Reply-To: ucleaar Sender: Lojban list From: ucleaar Subject: Re: TECH: Mark Shoulson waiting for a taxi X-To: lojban@cuvma.BITNET, I.Alexander.bra0125@oasis.icl.co.uk To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: (Your message of Wed, 08 Sep 93 09:45:30 A.) Status: RO X-Status: > > > I think this is another case of sumti-raising. What you are really > > > waiting for is {lo nu klama lo karcrtaksi}. > > > > > > mi'e .i,n. > > la .and. cusku di'e > > True enough, but it doesn't solve the non-specificity problem, > > does it? If the inception of nu klama [fa?] lo karcrtaksi > > happens, but Mark wasn't waiting for it, the utterance could > > still be true, whereas we want it to be false in such a > > circumstance. > > I'm sorry, I seem to have lost the thread somewhere. If > > la mark. denpa lo nu klama fa lo karcrtaksi > > how can the event happen without Mark waiting for it? Will it could happen without mark waiting for it If mark were waiting for a specific event, and the one that happens is not the one he was waiting for. Now the use of _lo_ rather than _le_ rules out this interpretation, but your example means (or can be paraphrased as) "There is some event of a taxi going, such that mark is awaiting it" - this would be appropriate if we knew Mark was going to be waiting for a taxi, but didn't know which one he was waiting for. But we need more than this; we need our statement to be falsified if an event of a taxi's coming along happens and Mark is not awaiting it. So I provisionally offer: la mark. denpa loi nu klama fa lo kartcrtaksi > Perhaps you think this isn't tight enough, and I could probably > agree with that. I think there are parts of the language that > we don't exercise often enough at the moment, and one of those > is the different flavours of NU, so I usually try and find an > alternative to {nu} itself. I often find {za'i} works well > for things which are anticipated (desired, waited for etc.), > so perhaps this should be {lo za'i ba'o klama}. It may indeed by appropriate to add in NUs & ZAHOs, but it is not relevant to the bits of meaning I was tussling with. ------ coho, mihe lahola. And la.