Received: from VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (vms.dc.lsoft.com [205.186.43.2]) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) with ESMTP id EAA19776 for ; Thu, 23 Nov 1995 04:03:38 -0500 Message-Id: <199511230903.EAA19776@locke.ccil.org> Received: from PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM (205.186.43.4) by VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.0a) with SMTP id 2FB847A5 ; Thu, 23 Nov 1995 4:54:09 -0400 Date: Thu, 23 Nov 1995 03:53:09 -0500 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: logical issues (lambda,ka, man-dogs, etc.) X-To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU X-cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Thu Nov 23 04:03:42 1995 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU >la djan cusku di'e > >> Poof. In fact, "mi se cmene zo xorxes" became true only when you joined >> the Lojban community. > >So {la xorxes pu jbena fi li pasoxaxa} is false? I have my own off-line answer about to be posted, but I'll comment on this one also. The answer is "no" because of the vagaries of tense in the combined languages. At the time la xorxes jbena, he was not se cmene zo xorxes. So John's statement is correct that "mi se cmene zo xorxes" became true only when you joined the Lojban community. before then,it was either false, or had to rely on a meaningless potential tense or on miraculous foresight in order that a person could truthfully say it at the time you were born. However in "la xorxes pu jbena fi li pasoxaxa" we still have the space time reference in the present, and you resolve "la xorxes" to the referent, and then you observe that indeed that referent of "zo xorxes" was born in the indicated year (I presume %^). So it is true now. If spoken in 1967, it would have been undefined truth value, since the reference "la xorxes" was almost certainly unresolvable in 1967. I guess if a Lojbanist time traveller went back then, they could say "la poi ba se cmene ku'o xorxes pu jbena fi li pasoxaxa" BTW, I now observe that in attempting to use forethought relative clauses in names, as I just did, I had trouble figuring out what the implied "ke'a" would refer to. This may be a problem with all "inner" relative clauses, but shows up strongly here, because until we put the "la" on "xorxes" we have no sumti to relativize. I thus was (and am still) uncertain whether I wanted "cmene" or "se cmene" in the relative clause. Comments??? lojbab