Return-Path: <@FINHUTC.HUT.FI:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET> Received: from FINHUTC.hut.fi by xiron.pc.helsinki.fi with smtp (Linux Smail3.1.28.1 #1) id m0qkY27-00005XC; Tue, 13 Sep 94 16:36 EET DST Message-Id: Received: from FINHUTC.HUT.FI by FINHUTC.hut.fi (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 5337; Tue, 13 Sep 94 16:35:00 EET Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin MAILER@SEARN) by FINHUTC.HUT.FI (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with BSMTP id 5335; Tue, 13 Sep 1994 16:35:00 +0200 Received: from SEARN.SUNET.SE (NJE origin LISTSERV@SEARN) by SEARN.SUNET.SE (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 2657; Tue, 13 Sep 1994 15:33:42 +0200 Date: Tue, 13 Sep 1994 14:20:17 BST Reply-To: i.alexander.bra0125@oasis.icl.co.uk Sender: Lojban list From: i.alexander.bra0125@OASIS.ICL.CO.UK Subject: TECH: RE: do djica loi ckafi je'i tcati X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Veijo Vilva Content-Length: 2690 Lines: 62 la kris. bogart. cusku di'e > Apparantly I was on vacation or simply not paying attention when this got > resolved. .u'u Sorry. No regrets necessary - I don't think we've got all the wrinkles out of this yet. la xorxes. cusku di'e > On the other hand, it can be thought in a different way and it doesn't work. > I'll change to {nitcu} instead of {djica} to avoid having to use {tu'a}. Ummm... {nitcu} is one indication we haven't got all the answers yet. Being _able_ to use {tu'a} gives us a way of making a distinction which isn't easy otherwise. > What is the meaning of: {mi nitcu lo tanxe}? > Is it "I need something which is a box", or is it "there exists at least > one box such that I need it"? I believe it has to be the latter. > > 9) "do djica tu'a loi ckafi ji loi tcati lu'u" > Well, I agree this is a solution, but I don't think it is the right general > solution. In the case of {djica}, it would seem that {tu'a} has to be used > anyway to avoid illegal sumti raising, so that the example is a bad one. When > there is no sumti raising, e.g. {do nitcu lo tanxe ji lo dakli}, using {tu'a} > seems wrong. I look at it from the opposite point of view. I took examples like these as indications that there is some sumti raising going on. But there's a nagging suspicion at the back of my mind that this isn't the whole answer. We have several gismu, one of whose places may need to be filled with something of the form "any-old-". Last I remember, there were three different styles of place definition for these - {sisku} takes a property, {djica} takes an event, and {nitcu} takes a concrete sumti. It could be that all gismu of this type (and I'm not sure how you spot them all) need to take an abstraction, at least as an option, in which case {tu'a} works. And in that case any such gismu which didn't allow an abstraction would not be usable to express the any-old- case. Or maybe there's something else going on. Natlangs seem to avoid the issue, or use constructions like any--whatever to emphasise the point. But I don't see how you carry that over into a logical language. > {do nitcu lo tanxe ji'e dakli} may be all right, depending on > what is the answer to my question above, but an appropriate sumti connective > would be nice too. > Since it would be very simple to allow BAIs to work like that (they're already > allowed in forethought form, so why not in afterthought also?), I don't see > any reason not to. > At least {mau}, {me'a}, {du'i}, {li'e}, {pa'a}, {fa'e}, {ba'i} and {do'e} can > be given good use in this function. This appears to be off into hyperspace. I hope I'm misunderstanding you. :-) mu'o mi'e .i,n.