Message-Id: <m0r8KOl-000071C@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Fri, 18 Nov 1994 00:10:23 +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: Cowan's summary: opacity and sumti-raising
To:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
In-Reply-To:  (Your message of Wed, 16 Nov 94 20:10:17 EST.)
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Jorge, on "sisku":
> The status quo seems to be neither of them, but:
>
>    (c) it is impossible, and the x2 is a {le ka...}, where the
>        meaning is x1 looks for something (not quantified, thus
>        possibly an opaque reference) that has property x2.
>
> There is no place for the looked for object.

I think you're right. But "Mi sisku le cukta" could be okay if you
are merely describing some property (e.g. the size of my feet) as
a book. But it couldn't mean you were seeking _Madame Bovary_.

> I could understand this if it never made sense to have an object
> being looked for, but it does make sense, so I don't see the need
> to forbid this simple expression.

Neither x2 being an object nor x2 being a property make much sense
to me. If x2 can be an object, it doesn't make sense if x2 can also
be an event or a property: if x2 can be an object then "sisku" means
"try to locate/acquire". Then, if you used a ka or nu x2, it would
mean you're trying to locate or acquire the property or the event
- not what is wanted. And you wouldn't be able to get opaque x2:
how would you do "I seek a book, any book"? "Tu'a lo cukta", I guess,
with all its yucky vagueness, & it means "I'm seeking to acquire/locate
some abstraction of a book", where the abstraction in question is
in fact the book itself and not an abstraction at all.

I don't see that sisku is ever going to end up useful. I see it
as "troci le nu ponse" scrunched into one brivla, with all the
attendant problems.

---
And