Message-Id: <m0rfyn5-00001GC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Sat, 18 Feb 1995 18:44:12 EST
Reply-To:     jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Subject:      Re: ago24 & replies
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 3418
Lines: 97

And:
> What I do wish is
> that a strict distinction be made between terms like "sumti" and
> "bridi" when they refer to words, and when they refer to ideas.
> They get used with systematic & deleterious ambiguity.

Yes, I agree. I don't see much problem with {bridi}, but {sumti}
is strange. For example, can I say {zo mi sumti ro selbri da}?
I have no idea.

> I think {lohe mlatu cu broda} means
>
>    Ax x is a typical instance of cat archetype -> x is broda

Is this what you mean?

        lo'e mlatu cu broda
        ijo ro fadni befi lo'i mlatu cu broda

If yes, then do you agree that {mi pensi lo'e mlatu} would be
nonsense, since I couldn't possibly think about so many cats?
(If not, could you give some rendering in Lojban?)

I'm more inclined to think of it as:

        lo'e mlatu cu broda
        ijo su'o cnano befi lo'i mlatu cu broda

then I could {pensi lo'e mlatu}, and even {pensi re lo'e mlatu}.

> I'm not reading your mind properly, but I wonder if your idea
> might be something like the Mr Cat stuff brought up by Bob
> Chassell last year vis a vis massifiers. The Mr Cat idea is that
> you do not distinguish one cat from another - all cats count
> as the same cat. It turned out that this is not what massifiers
> do, but it sounds a bit like what you're saying about {lohe}.

Yes, I thought about it too. What would you say to that idea?
In some sense, that's what an average is, it blurs all the members
into one.

Some questions that I'm not sure how to answer. Are these true?

        lo'e mlatu cu mlatu

        lo'e mlatu cu cmima lo'i mlatu

        lo'e mlatu du lo mlatu

> > Did you mean {le du'u makau du _la'e_ lu lo'e mlatu li'u}?
> Yes.
> > That's equivalent, I think, to {le du'u makau du lo'e mlatu}?
> > But I don't see what distinction you are making.
>
> It might be equivalent to {le duhu lohe mlatu ku du makau} (I'm a bit
> worried about quantifier scope in your version.)

If I were feeling malicious I would ask you to rephrase that with the
four more words that you need to get rid of the kau. Then we could be
certain about any quantifier scope problem.

> I wanted to say
> in effect "we are asking what is it that {lohe mlatu} means", as
> opposed to "{lohe mlatu} means x, & we are discussing x".

Yes, I think so. At lest I'm not sure yet what is x.

> I propose {klama} gets an extra tersumti, for the activity of going.
> If you go twice (along same path), then this tersumti could be filled
> by {re da}.

There's {reroi} for that.

> If you go in the present then this tersumti could be
> filled by {lo cabna}.

Again that's the tense {ca}. Are you proposing a new way to deal with
tenses?

> At present no selbri have these "event places". I say I want most
> rather than all to have one, because a few, like {du} and the
> mathematical ones are hard to construe as events - {lo nu da du de}
> is odd.

I guess all that take only sumti with abstract referents would give
odd events {lo nu da valsi} is as odd as {lo nu da du de}.

> If klama, zvati have this "event place", then {le se duhu zvati/klama}
> has an implicit {zohe} in that place. This {zohe} could be specific,
> in which case {le se duhu klama} is true iff the going happened at
> a specific in-mind time.

I think that in this respect you can think of the tense as implicit.
So that {mi klama} is not just {mi klama zo'e zo'e zo'e zo'e} but
{mi do'e klama zo'e zo'e zo'e zo'e}.

Jorge