From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Fri Nov 18 00:26:46 1994 Message-Id: <199411180526.AA09656@nfs1.digex.net> Date: Fri Nov 18 00:26:46 1994 From: ucleaar Subject: Re: Cowan's summary: opacity and sumti-raising In-Reply-To: (Your message of Wed, 16 Nov 94 20:10:17 EST.) Status: RO 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