Message-Id: <199311040140.AA05262@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Wed, 3 Nov 1993 20:37:21 EST
Reply-To: Jorge LLambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Jorge LLambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: {sorcu} definition
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: RO

na'e sisti fa le nu la bob ce mi simxu le nu fapro fi le si'o sorcu

>  But if you are thinking
> just of the gold, why not use the other features of Lojban for talking
> about a quantity of a substance?  You could say:
>
>     ko'a bevri lo solji
>
>     ko'a bevri lo spisa be lo solji
>
> Both these examples focus more on the substance itself, rather than on
> the substance plus its non-physical context.

So, you either take just the gold, or the supply-in-container, there is
no way in Lojban to transfer the supply-of-gold from one container to
another.

> By "non-physical context", I mean, the reasons an entity is considered
> a "store/deposit/supply/reserve" rather than just a substance.  You
> don't say, "I have a supply or store of air." unless you have a reason
> to be concerned about continual access to air.  Similarly with gold;
> you don't worry about your reserve of it, unless you have a limited amount.

Limited amount maybe (although you can easily talk about infinite reserves,
be it that they are truly infinite or not), but I don't see any intrinsic
need for a container.

> On the other hand, when you are talking about a relationship that
> involves all the English concepts adumbrated by:
>
>     store/deposit/supply/reserve
>
> you get something different from a substance itself.  I look at those
> four English words and say to myself: "Reserve", that concept has to
> involve more than just the substance, since a "reserve" is a
> meaningful concept only in a context in which you are talking about
> something `in reserve'; similarly, "supply" is meaningful only in a
> context.

Yet you were using a concept of supply that didn't involve a container
when you wrote:

>    > If I had a supply of gold, I would think about it very
>    > differently if it were located in a relatively insecure
>                     --
>    > container compared to a secure vault.
>
>    What is "it" in your sentence?
>
> Let me rephrase this:
>
>   If I had a supply of gold, I would think about the situation of my
>   having some gold very differently if the gold were located in a
>   relatively insecure compared to a secure vault.

Do you admit that with your definition, sorcu can't be used to
translate "supply of gold" as used in your first phrasing? It is not
true that "supply" has always an intrinsic container associated
in English, because your initial phrasing makes perfect sense. There
is something funny with the adumbration.

> As for supply of orange juice in the bottle in the refrigerator, it
> too vanishes, only to appear as the supply of orange juice in the
> (leaky) container in the back pack.

Then your mother would be wrong in telling you the night before, that the
supply of orange juice for her picnic was in the refrigerator. Only
the material of the would-be supply was there. The supply would not
be such until the juice was poured into the leaky container.

co'o mi'e xorxes