Message-Id: <199602052052.WAA01106@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Mon, 5 Feb 1996 13:33:36 -0600
Reply-To: Scott Brickner <sjb@UNIVERSE.DIGEX.NET>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Scott Brickner <sjb@UNIVERSE.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      Re: brain fart metaphor
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
In-Reply-To:  (Your message of Fri, 02 Feb 1996 18:45:09 GMT.) 
              <118149.9602021845@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>
Content-Length: 1655
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ucleaar writes:
>I don't think {broda brode} entails {brode}. So technically, {besna kafke}
>is legit. Furthermore, even if you used just {kafke}, that too is okay;
>you'd be claiming it was a cough/fart, but then that's metaphor.

I think you've gone too far.  I'm with you that {broda brode} need not
entail {brode}, but I do think that {brode} *does* entail {brode}, so
{kafke} alone should be marked with {pe'a}.

>As for whether you should use {pea}, there are no circumstances in which
>you should use {pea}, but this is a circumstance where it would be
>acceptable to do so.

I disagree that {pe'a} is always optional.  Failure to use {pe'a} when
a gismu or lujvo is being used metaphorically is (IMHO) improper.  As
Don noted in one of our Lojban exchanges on the subject, Lojban is a
*logical* language.  If you assert a predicate, the predicate should be
true (epistemological issues aside).  If you wish to assert that it is
metaphorically true, say so.

My position, though, is that tanru are already metaphors, and don't,
therefore, require {pe'a} markers.

The particular point at issue is whether the places of {broda brode},
being the same as {brode}, may be filled by metaphorical objects.  Does
a {besna kafke} require a {te kafke}, or may it merely have a {pe'a te
kafke}?  Don (and John Cowan, it seems) think not.  (I'm actually
undecided, not really being competent to decide, but am arguing in
favor of it as advocatus diabolus.)

Meanwhile, can anyone come up with a selbri for "metaphor"?  I'd like
to move some of this discussion *back* to lojban, but it's tough when
I can't say "Tanru are metaphors" for lack of the darn word.