From sbelknap@UIC.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:56:30 2010 Date: Wed, 26 Apr 1995 15:10:54 -0500 From: Steven Belknap Subject: Re: sarji To: Bob LeChevalier X-From-Space-Date: Wed Apr 26 22:06:20 1995 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Message-ID: This is an interesting point; I've wondered the same about other Lojban predicates. I would argue that _sarji_ in this context should not be marked as a metaphor. Support means different things depending on what is supported. Supporting the Republican party is different from supporting the Sears Tower. One approach would be to have different predicates for the different meanings of support, but this would be unwieldy for some concepts. Supporting the Republican party suggests some da is keeping the GOP going by some de. (words, cash, etc.) Supporting the Sears Tower suggests that some da is keeping the building erect by some de (structural rigidity, tension member, etc.) Even though the details of support are different in each case, the concept of support is analogous enough to be fairly clear. Undoubtedly idiom plays a role; a commonly used sequence of predicates will acquire its own meaning independent of the "logical" sum of the meanings of the component parts of the idiom. I would argue that metaphor marking should be reserved for those instances where something other than the concrete combination of predicates is intended. But. One advantage of Lojban might be to avoid always going down the same semantic path in language. So I could see how it might be argued that metaphors SHOULD be used for conceptual support but not for actual physical support. Both marking or not marking are syntactically correct: as with many usage issues, inevitably-- the speakers shall decide. -Steven Steven M. Belknap, M.D. Assistant Professor of Clinical Pharmacology and Medicine University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria email: sbelknap@uic.edu Voice: 309/671-3403 Fax: 309/671-8413