From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu Sun May 14 13:25:28 1995
Date:         Sun, 14 May 1995 13:27:40 EDT
From: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Subject:      Re: Questions
To: Bob LeChevalier <lojbab@access.digex.net>
Message-ID: <_VMvujgdh1O.A.1rE.st0kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org>

> >> >      la djan. ne pu la mark. [ge'u] [cu] melbi tavla [vau]
> >> >     John, who was (incidentally) before Mark, is a beautiful-talker.
> >>
> >> Doesn't this show exactly the confusion about {pu} mentioned earlier?
> >> {la mark.} is not an event.
> >
> >I agree with you. It might mean, I suppose, that John lived before
> >Mark was born.
>
> Why is "la mark." not an event?

I tend to understand it as "Mark", which is a common English name
for persons. Of course, it can be the name of an event, but that's
not what the English gloss above suggests.

> First of all, it is a named thing, and
> it is possible that the speaker is simply labeling some event "Mark"
> (which could be a lifetime, or it could be an act of speaking).

In that case, the English translation is very misleading.

> If you
> grant that you can label an event with a name of course, then the
> default assumption is indeed likely that the event named "Mark" happens
> to be the lifetime of someone named Mark.

Yes, but events are not usually beautiful talkers. It is hard for me
to imagine an event talking, unless it's in a metaphorical sense.
(Actions talking louder than words, and such.)

> Now I agree that "tu'a la mark." might be more logically explicit, but I
> am not sure that it conveys any additional information - you've simply
> explicitly said that Mark is a place in some event, and the time
> comparison is with the event.  But it says nothing more about what kind
> of event (an act of speaking, or a lifetime), so why not just keep
> things simple.

Even {tu'a la mark} is logically suspect, because it is being attached
to the sumti {la djan}, not to the event of John's talking.

As for keeping things simple, that argument could be used for never
using {tu'a}, and forgetting about sumti raising problems.

Jorge



>From lojbab
To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Subject: Re: Questions

>I tend to understand it as "Mark", which is a common English name
>for persons. Of course, it can be the name of an event, but that's
>not what the English gloss above suggests.

Yes it is a common English name for persons.  But we are dealing with a
simple case of metonymy, where the name of something is being used to
represent an event that thing (person) participated in.

The problem is in knowing what "la mark" refers to as an event.  My
convention has been to have it refer to the person's life/existence as
an event.  "tu'a la mark" by exclusion implies to me some more
restricted event, such as an act of talking.

The logical suspicion is uncalled for, since there is a rather minimal
predication implied by "pe".  If the link was "po'u" I might agree with
you.  (Make that "ne" and not "pe" having reread the initial quote:
>> >> >      la djan. ne pu la mark. [ge'u] [cu] melbi tavla [vau]
>> >> >     John, who was (incidentally) before Mark, is a beautiful-talker.
>> >>
>> >> Doesn't this show exactly the confusion about {pu} mentioned earlier?
>> >> {la mark.} is not an event.
>> >
>> >I agree with you. It might mean, I suppose, that John lived before
>> >Mark was born.
>>
>> Why is "la mark." not an event?
)

lojbab