Message-Id: <199601051845.NAA16429@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Fri, 5 Jan 1996 18:21:22 +0000
Reply-To: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: TECH:opaque (ex mass and le/lo)
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR
Content-Length: 2598

Date:         Mon, 18 Dec 1995 13:30:00 -0800
From: "John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>
> the cmavo list:
> tu'a      LAhE     the bridi implied by
>                    extracts a concrete sumti from an unspecified
>                    abstraction; equivalent to le nu/su'u [sumti] co'e
> I wondered about the grammar of this, which I was using, I
> noticed, as grammatically transparent, like a UI restricted to
> appearing before sumti.  But it turns out to be a sumti to sumti
> function, transparent in Lojban grammar (because of the general
> reduction of all sumti to one level) but complex in Lojban
> semantics, where it converts a non-event sumti into an event sumti,
> with the predicate derived by convention from the visible sumti
> and the predicate to which it attaches.  So _mi djica tu'a lo plise_ is
> presumable a compressed form of _mi djica le nu mi ponsu/citka
> lo plise_.

Are we sure that {da tua de broda} is equivalent to {da zou da broda
loi suu de zou de coe}, rather than to {da de zou da broda loi suu de coe}?
The definition of {tua} implies this.

> Since x2 of _djica_ is specified as taking an event, both
> of these forms are totally acceptable, but _mi djica lo plise_ would
> be at least questionable -- not ungrammatical  (since their is no
> way to specify event references grammatically -- except that _lenu
> ..._ always counts) but dissonant in some way, since an apple is not
> -- Whorf's (unconfirmed) view of Hopi metaphysics notwithstanding --
> an event (Please, let's leave this one for another time and another
> thread, because I already know most of what the shitkickers are going
> to say that is true).

I think the x2 of djica should be a bridi (i.e. duu/kuau). It makes
as much or as little sense to want an apple as it does to want an
event. But events in lojban are something very different from events
elsewhere.

> These problems need not arise with the artistic subject opaque
> places, "picture of", "book about" and the like, since it is at least
> plausible such things are always about events: Madame X standing
> by a table, not just Madame X, for example.  The plausibility thins
> a bit with compositions on abstract subjects, but we can probably
> circumvent any problems that arise.  If we decide we need to.

That seems mad to me, unless by "event" you mean "bridi/duu" (i.e.
not about Mme X's standing but about that Mme X stands), in which
case I see the appeal of the analysis but nonetheless don't go along
with it. I prefer your suggestion of something in CAhA meaning "is
in a not-necessarily-real world".

coo, mie And