From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Tue Oct 26 05:38:44 1993 Received: from ELI.CS.YALE.EDU by NEBULA.SYSTEMSZ.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Tue, 26 Oct 1993 10:06:00 -0400 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by eli.CS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Tue, 26 Oct 1993 10:05:55 -0400 Message-Id: <199310261405.AA03207@eli.CS.YALE.EDU> Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 4546; Tue, 26 Oct 93 10:03:48 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 3585; Tue, 26 Oct 93 09:41:36 EDT Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 09:38:44 -0400 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: TECH: (attention Ivan!) demonstrative predicate cmavo needed? X-Cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: <199310201047.AA15224@access.digex.net> from "Logical Language Group" at Oct 20, 93 06:47:03 am Status: RO X-Status: mi'e .djan. .i la lojbab. cusku di'e > If I point in some direction and say "ta", people will focus on a > 'thing' in that direction. But if my intent is to call attention to a > _relationship_ in that direction, I have no way to clearly do it, UNLESS > I shop around for a predicate that forces a predicative place. This wording simply makes no sense to me, on consideration. You cannot "call attention to a _relationship_ in that direction", because relationships do not have spatial locations. >Events< have spatial locations, and the necessary and sufficient way of referring to "an event over there", as Nick says, is "tu'a ta". > Thus, > for the usage "do it this way and not that way" you can express it using > "ta'i ti .enai ta" and the fact that tadji takes a predicate means that > you are OK more or less. Yes, well, it's sumti raising. "ta'i tu'a ti .enai tu'a ta", or else "ta'i tu'a lu'a ti .enai ta" is better, strictly speaking. Still, I agree that using "ta" where an event is expected is probably clear enough. > But what if what you want to say about the > demonstrated relationship is something that doesn't handily have such a > semantic clue based on how you insert it into the sentence. I think that in fact you will never be talking about the bridi itself, but rather about an event which is grammatically derived from the bridi. (But I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.) -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban.