Message-Id: <m0qzZso-00006qC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Mon, 24 Oct 1994 19:23:34 EDT
Reply-To:     jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Subject:      Re: "any"
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 1703
Lines: 51

> > (1)     ko cuxna lo karda
> >
> > Sentence (1) does NOT mean "there exists at least one card such that
> > I am requesting that you pick it"
>
> This doesn't look like "no problem" to me. What if I want to say
> "There is a card; pick it", or "Pick a card (& there is a card)"?
>
> ----
> And

You can do the same thing you are doing in English, paraphrase:

        ko'a karda i ko cuxna ko'a
        It is a card; pick it.

or

        ko cuxna lo karda (to ije lo karda cu zasti toi)
        Pick a card (& a card exists).

I say in this case there is no problem because the simple expression
{ko cuxna lo karda} already has the opaque meaning, due to the way
that {ko} is defined, and furthemore the opaque meaning is the one
we usually want for this type of sentence. If you mean something else,
you have to be more wordy.

I just realized that it is strange that we have a special word for
the "command mode", but not for other similar things like the
"intentional mode", or the "volitional mode", etc, which are handled
with UIs, but could equally well have been something like {ko}.

For example, say {xi'u} was the "intentional {mi}", then we'd have

        xi'u klama lo zarci  ~   ai mi klama lo zarci

just like

        ko klama lo zarci    ~   e'o do klama lo zarci

I don't see why the imperative is somehow more fundamental than the
intentional, volitional, and all the others.

It would be interesting to make a list of the attitudinals that change
the sentence to opaque mode, like {ai} and {e'o}.

This is assuming I'm right that {ai mi klama lo zarci} means
"I intend that there be a store such that I go to it" and not
"there is a store such that I intend to go to it".

Jorge