Message-Id: <m0r9fZY-00007CC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Mon, 21 Nov 1994 20:28:01 +0000
Reply-To:     ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      existential quantification
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 972
Lines: 24

"Mi troci lo nu mi viska do" is, I think, equivalent to
"Da poi nu mi viska do zohu mi troci da".
     ^^^^^ [this is a guess - I don't know any other way to do it]
I would translate this as "I managed to see you".
The problem is how to get "I tried to see you", where the attempt
is, or may be, unsuccessful, so that there is no event of me
seeing you.
I have been told, in the last few months, that "nu" doesn't entail
its complement bridi is true, but I should have thought that the
existentially quantifying preceding "lo" does require there to
be an event.
Have I gone wrong?
What is the solution?

If this sort of non-factual sumti is found only with "intentional"
brivla then a solution might be to render "try" by:
  "Mi troci lo siho mi viska do"
(where "siho" is what I think is the idea abstraction cmavo from NU).
- With "troci" suitably defined so that it can accommodate such
an x2 sumti. The meaning would be: x1 endeavours to realize the
idea x2.

---
And