From cowan Tue Dec 12 10:43:41 1995 Subject: Re: ZAhO and tanru From: John Cowan To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu (Lojban List) Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 10:43:41 -0500 (EST) In-Reply-To: <199512090218.VAA18785@locke.ccil.org> from "ucleaar" at Dec 8, 95 11:57:43 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1074 Status: OR Message-ID: la .and. cusku di'e > Is there any difference > between {mi cao citka} and {mi ca citka}? Yes. "mi ca'o citka" says that at some unspecified time the process of my eating is/was/will be in progress. "mi ca citka" says that at the present time some unspecified part of my eating is in progress. > > na'e alters the meaning of the selbri itself - on some scale, > > Well we agee on this at least. > > > without necessarily referring to any of its sumti > > Does NAhE have sumti? "its sumti" = "the sumti attached to the selbri", I think. > > (which of course can make the implied scale rather ambiguous when > > na'e is used inside a tanru) > > If {cukta nanmu} is "book person", then why shouldn't {cukta nae > nanmu} be, no more and no less straightforwardly, "book non-person"? It depends on how you read "non-person". If you mean "something other than a person, on some implicit scale", then fine. If you mean "something that is not a person [merely]", then no: that is contradictory negation. -- John Cowan cowan@ccil.org e'osai ko sarji la lojban.