Message-Id: <m0rBudZ-00007EC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Mon, 28 Nov 1994 01:09:45 +0000
Reply-To:     ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: diversity
To:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
In-Reply-To:  (Your message of Sun, 27 Nov 94 15:17:38 EST.)
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Jorge:
> > By "true meaning" I mean "the sense the brivla actually has (rather
> > than some sense that we mistakenly believe it has)".
> Ok, but in a constructed language we define that sense, at least until
> there is enough usage that it gets defined by that. Why would one
> definition be truer than another?

The true definition is the one the language designers have defined.
In the case of djica, it appears to be defined as synonymous with
English "want" - lo nu djica is wanting.

> > > > (I am in favour of a kind of opacity marker that means "the following
> > > > sumti can't be exported to the prenex out of the abstraction containing
> > > > the bridi the sumti is sumti of".)
> > > That's {tu'a}. It already exists.
> > I mean a marker like $$$$ in "mi djica lo nu mi citka $$$$ lo plise"
> > where $$$$ rules out "da poi plise zohu mi djica lo nu mi citka da".
> > At present, I think, the zohu-form is not ruled out.
>
> Sorry, I misunderstood. As I see it, the zohu-form is indeed ruled out.
> The prenex in that case goes inside the nu: {mi djica le nu da poi plise
> zo'u mi citka da}.
>
> Since it is rare that we would want the outside quantification, I think
> such marker is not needed. The outside prenex can always be explicited
> in the rare cases when that's what we mean.

I expect people would (carelessly) tend to translate "there is a book
that I am trying to find" as "mi troci lo nu facki lo cukta". I would
like a way of showing that when I say such a thing I haven't carelessly
forgotten to say "da poi cukta zohu mi troci lo nu facki da". A discursive
would do; maybe there is one already - a marker for non-sloppy usage.

> > > Suppose it is revised and made transparent. What would {mi sisku lo'e
 tanxe}
> > > mean? Doesn't it mean something very close to "I'm looking for a box"?
> >
> > Close, yes. "I seek the box. The box is sought by me. I seek Box."
> > By my understanding of "lohe", it merges all members of a category
> > into a single individual that all members are modelled on.
> > It implies "Every box is, by default, sought by me, unless it is
> > exceptional."
>
> That doesn't agree well with lojbab's 1.7 children. Or does that mean that
> every family has 1.7 children unless it is exceptional?

It does mean this. (That's why people find it an amusing idea.)

> > Your proposal suggests that
> > sumti have the semantic property [+/-opaque], & this obscures
> > the fact (or so I take it to be) that opacity in fact arises from
> > semantic structures in which an argument is contained within a
> > mental representation.
>
> You disagree that {lo'e} is +opaque then?

I reckon so. For me it's a constant; there is only one lohe broda.

---
And