From <@FINHUTC.HUT.FI,@SEARN.SUNET.SE:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET> Mon Mar 8 17:17:12 2010 Return-Path: <@FINHUTC.HUT.FI,@SEARN.SUNET.SE:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET> Received: from FINHUTC.hut.fi by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #14) id m0ov8n9-0000PYC; Thu, 4 Nov 93 19:48 EET Message-Id: Received: from FINHUTC.HUT.FI by FINHUTC.hut.fi (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.2MX) with BSMTP id 5526; Thu, 04 Nov 93 19:48:28 EET Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin MAILER@SEARN) by FINHUTC.HUT.FI (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 5525; Thu, 4 Nov 1993 19:48:28 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin LISTSERV@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 3636; Thu, 4 Nov 1993 18:47:40 +0100 Date: Thu, 4 Nov 1993 09:03:05 -0800 Reply-To: jimc%MATH.UCLA.EDU@FINHUTC.hut.fi Sender: Lojban list From: jimc%MATH.UCLA.EDU@FINHUTC.hut.fi Subject: Re: TECH: more thoughts on zi'o To: lojban@cuvmb.columbia.edu In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 03 Nov 93 03:27:13 EST." <9311030830.AA18477@julia.math.ucla.edu> Content-Length: 2438 Lines: 49 Lojbab writes: > For these people, the route has a common general description, and > we could just put "le panka" in the route place. But we are stretching thing > to do this, since none of the people has the same exact route, and indeed the > people may not have the same route each time they individually walk through > the park. I know interpretations change in the wind, but I am remembering the Old Loglan interpretation of omitted places (or my interpretation of Old Loglan) which went like this: Their nonexistent equivalent of zi'o was an existentially quantified free variable like da-de-di. So to interpret le ci cribe cu klama fo le panka (fe zi'o fi zi'o fu zi'o) you expand it, supplying a prenex that isn't in the original, to For each of the three bears, for the park (quantity of parks unstated in original but iteration (if any) and "le" interpretation is individual per bear), there exists X, Y and Z (individually per bear and per park) such that the bear goes to X from Y via (a route within) the park by transport device Z. Quantification occurs left to right in order of first appearance of the variables, whether in an explicit prenex or not. Vacant places are quantified at the end (individual for each set of explicit place values), because if you had wanted to say that the same value applied to all meaning set members you would have inserted an explicit da-de-di in the proper order. I think, instead, that you have implicitly put all the vacant places at the beginning, so that only one value applies to all meaning set members, and I think this order is neither necessary nor helpful: There exists X, Y and Z such that for each of the three bears and for the park... It would be another story if X1 were a mass noun, such as lei cribe, the pack of bears. Then the first item in the prenex would have a count of only one, and so there would be only one X, Y and Z per (only one) pack, not one per bear. The distinction between unidirectional and multidirectional verbs of motion: is this like xodit& (walk around) vs. podxodit& (walk up to X2)? (Or whatever preposition.) My teacher explaned this as a imperfective/perfective distinction. I could understand why podxodit& is perfective, but I couldn't really see why xodit& had to be specifically imperfective; I felt you could walk around perfectively. -- jimc