From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Fri Oct 22 13:17:28 1993 Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Fri, 22 Oct 1993 07:22:28 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Fri, 22 Oct 1993 07:22:23 -0400 Message-Id: <199310221122.AA01380@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1304; Fri, 22 Oct 93 07:20:22 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 2853; Fri, 22 Oct 93 07:23:21 EDT Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1993 12:17:28 +0100 Reply-To: Colin Fine Sender: Lojban list From: Colin Fine Subject: Converse of tu'a/ demonstratives X-To: Logical Language Group , LOJBAN@cuvmb.BITNET To: Erik Rauch Status: RO X-Status: Thus lojbab: +++++++> Actually, I've been arguing with myself whether we have in Lojban the inverse of "tu'a" - something that metonymizes a sumti out to a selbri, with the grammar of the latter. This may indeed be what "me" really is, but as defined, we tend to think of it as the inverse of "le". One would normally think that the result of an inverse to "tu'a" would be an abstraction, of the level of "su'u". But then how does an abstraction differ from a concrete in Lojban, once you hide the structure of the 'inside predication'. So I'm undecided whether this is covered or not by "me", and not going to argue for it since I obviously can't think of anythink like it in natlangs. >++++++++ I'm a little confused. "tu'a" maps from sumti to sumti, and forces +abstract. A converse to that would take a +abstract sumti and deliver an implied sumti (+/-abstract unspecified). Using "xu'a" for it, I think xu'a ko'a would mean da poi ko'a cu su'u ke'a co'e I could think of cases where you could use this, such as mi viska xu'a le rinka but I don't really think it's needed because 1) Most +abstract sumti are explicit abstractions (we can say 'le rinka', but we don't very often do so) 2) The caco'a cnano lujvo with (eg) -gau do the job better. I don't however see what this has got to do with your takoi. On a formal level "me" is indeed a converse of "le" in that it maps from sumti to selbri. I suspect that the subjectivity of both means that they are semantically converse too. (In a sense, the converse of 'lo' is 'du'!) I think the problem of your demonstratives is not grammatical, but the uncertainty as to what is the object of the deixis and whether ti/ta/tu can usefully point to it. +++++++> I think we could use a ti/ta distinction; tu seems less important, but I would take it if there was support for all three. I don't know any languages with 3 way demonstrative distinction to know whether they have 3 way predicate demonstratives as well. >++++++ Japanese has the three-way distinction, and a wide range of derivatives. In particular, 'koo', 'soo', 'aa' are 'in this way', 'in that way', in yonder way'. Colin