Message-Id: <MAILQUEUE2-102.931009181842.320@hylkn1.Helsinki.FI>
Date:         Sat, 9 Oct 1993 12:18:30 EDT
Reply-To: Jorge LLambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Sender: vilva
From: Jorge LLambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: vehicle/means places on various gismu, litru vs. klama
To: Veijo Vilva <VILVA@viikki21.helsinki.fi>
Content-Length: 2010
Lines: 45

> Lojbab:
> > There seems to be some confusion about these places.  A "vehicle or
> > means" does not necessarily imply some physical "thing" carrying you.
> > If you "walk" the means is your legs.  I would NOT rule out spirits
> > "leaving" the body at death.  Indeed "death" in this case would seem to
> > be the means.

And:
> Death is the means more in the way that a door can be a means for
> leaving, whereas the means place I'd thought was for the means of
> locomotion.

That's how I understood it too.

> I am all in favour of treating non-physical motions and changes as
> klamaing, but I merely note your opposition to the use of metaphor
> in Lojban. Perhaps you will allow spirits to cliva a body, but not
> 'the life force' to. ('allow' = 'approve of')

Yes, it's difficult to picture something that no longer exists once it has
left, leaving using a means of locomotion.

> > As for route places, they are a little bit trickier.  But those trained
> > in math certainly have concepts of vectors and directed line segments
> > that have an origin and do not necessarily have a destination.
>
> How would one express the direction of an asymptotic route, a route
> that gets infinitely nearer to its goal but never arrives, however
> much litruing there is?

Well, you are describing it, so the route must exist. I don't have
much problem with the route in {litru}, although I'd prefer {cliva}
not to have it. To me, the route and vehicle, although often present,
are totally irrelevant to the concept of leaving. And to have {cliva}
meaning just {klama} without a destination place, is a waste.

The vehicle/means place restricts the three of them unnecessarily. I still
don't know how to talk about free motion, or even things like the movement
of the ball that lojbab's son throws. To say "the ball went from Avgust's
hands to the lamp", I can't use {klama}, because the ball was not using
any means to go there. Same if I want to say "the sun travels from east
to west across the sky".

Jorge