Message-Id: <MAILQUEUE2-102.931015064221.704@hylkn1.Helsinki.FI>
Date:         Fri, 15 Oct 1993 01:41:32 -0400
Reply-To: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Sender: vilva
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      TECH: jarco place structure
To: Veijo Vilva <VILVA@viikki21.helsinki.fi>
Content-Length: 4173
Lines: 103

Given discussion today of transitive/intransitive, I went thru all gismu
looking for cases where we have a transitive that might be better
reduced to an intransitive.  There are actually few such cases.  One is
jarco, which came up last month in discussions of sumti-raising, if
somewhat inconclusively. following is the discussions that took place:

John Cowan:
>> jarco show x1 (person/object) shows/exhibits/displays/reveals x2
>> (object/property) to audience x3 8c 85 [reveal (= mipyja'o, sivja'o);
>> also demonstrate]; (cf. tigni)
>
>I don't understand why "property" here.  Seems to be just a way of
>saying "object which has property", which is just "le [se] ckaji".

Jim Carter:
>x2 expects object only.  If an abstraction, no J and no replication.
>Example: "The impresario puts on a performance by the famous singer".

[Lojbab: This confuses me - what is the Lojban equivalent]

Iain Alexander:
>I assume "property" is in there to allow things like
>
>        ko'a jarco lo ka virnu kei tai lo nu jivna le traji be fo roda
>        He shows his courage by taking on the world champion.
>
>I don't think this is _entirely_ malglico, although you may be able
>to suggest a better way of doing it.

Nick (responding to Cowan):
>I disagree. You can make it apparent that you have some property. Keep it
>as is.

=============
Lojbab now:

What we really have here is a confusion of transitive and intransitive
meanings of "show" reflecting malglico influence.

In English, we say

"I show this to you" which is transitive of something like "This is on
display to you".  English doesn't have very good direct wording for
intransitive display of an object.

But we do have intransitive display of properties as in Iain's example
above:  "He shows his courage by ..." or "The witch revealed her
underlying evil by ...".  We more rarely have intransitive object
revealings of properties, but usually these are worded with an impersonal
(and/or passive) construction:  "The film's excellence was revealed in
its quality of cinematography".

It is possible to have a transitive display of an object's properties,
too.  "He showed how colorful the rock was under ultraviolet light"

I notice in trying to coin such property examples that I want to add a
'place' which is an event or manner of revealing - a "by ..." place, but
am not sure whether or not this is merely malglico.

Thus it seems to me that we are stretching too many variations on one
theme in the existing place structure.  I'm not sure which should be the
underlying one, but suspect that it should be the intransitive one
because there are few true transitives in Lojban when both possibilities
exist.

The intransitive is therefore x1 displays property x2 [to audience x3?]
[in manner/by means of x4?]

I am sure x3 is needed or it isn't a nu jarco, but merely a nu ckaji,
but I'm not sure about x4.

One would presume that jarcygasnu would be the transitive display of
property.

However it is NOT clear how all this gives us transitive display of an
object; i.e.  "x1 shows the rock to the audience".  I guess you could
phrase it as a property:  "ko'a jarcygasnu leka zo'e rokci" but am not
sure this is really satisfactory.  Is showing a rock the same as showing
its rock-ness?  It actually seems to me that it is more likely that he
is showing the rock for purpose of revealing some other property/(ies)
of the rock, and thus showing "leka rokci" is at least misleading if not
wrong.

It is perhaps possible if there is a by means x4 place, to say something
like "ko'a jarco zo'e zo'e lenu curmi le terjarco cu viska le rokci" x1
shows (unspecified property) (to the audience) by permitting the
audience to see the rock.  This works but seems wordy, and I have a
nagging feeling that there are examples I'm not thinking of that would
break it.


Thus questions:
a.  Do we make the gismu intransitive display of property
b.  Is an x4 means place necessary/desirable
c.  If a., then how do we do transitive display of an object, especially
    when the point is to display some unspecified properties of that object

I'm sure there are other derivable questions implicit in the above.

lojbab

lojbab