Message-Id: <m0sOKd2-0000YqC@xiron>
Date:         Wed, 21 Jun 1995 03:44:50 -0400
Reply-To:     Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From:         Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      xanka
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 1599
Lines: 36

xank*
>> >  Why does {xanka} have
>> >"under conditions" but {gleki} doesn't?
>>
>> Perhaps my understanding of happiness (which became embedded in Lojban)
>> is that it can be unconditional, whereas anxiety is conditional.
>
>So you can be a happy person but not an anxious person?

I don't understand the question?  In English there are no implied
ellipses in either of those two phrases.  In the Lojban, one can be
happy independent of conditions, but anxiety is presumed either in
response an event or state in one's environment.

Put more plainly perhaps, I have heard people referred to as being
happy, with no implication that they were "happy about something".
Whereas I cannot think of a situation where "anxious" did not imply
"anxious about something".  There are philsophical positions that allow
for or assume that happiness can be a default (and hence unconditional)
state of mankind (people in general).  I have not heard of philosophies
that assume that people in general are inherently anxious, without being
anxious about something in particular.

If you are asking about "happy-type people" and "anxious-type people", I
think that these are better stated as "usually happy/anxious" or
"normally happy/anxious"

>Everything can be conditional, that's what {va'o} is for, isn't it?

Yes.  And you can put a "ka'a" place in every predicate too, including
klama.  The question is whether a place is always a necessary condition
for the predication.  The inclusion of a condition place on xanka means
that it is inherent to the nature of anxiety that it is tied to
conditions.

lojbab