From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Sat Feb 10 11:24:32 1996 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 LAA14027 for ; Sat, 10 Feb 1996 11:24:28 -0500 Message-Id: <199602101624.LAA14027@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 9CD47CFC ; Sat, 10 Feb 1996 10:47:18 -0500 Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 10:45:20 -0500 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: *old response to Colin Fine on re xirma X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 1789 colin@kindness.demon.co.uk> >The level of structure I'm talking about is that of (grammatical) >category. In English (and Chinese) a word or phrase can often function >as several different grammatical categories. In Finnish it usually >cannot, because its form defines its category. In Lojban we have >invariable words, but clearly defined categories: 'xirma' is a brivla; >it can therefore function as a selbri, or a bridi, or indeed a jufra. >It cannot be a sumti - it needs an explicit converter, normally a gadri. >Now my objection to 're xirma' is that a laivla (quantifier word) is >being used as this converter. Clearly it can be made to work because it >has been; but in my view it's a kludge, in large part because it means >'re lo xirma' and that 'lo' is part of the skeleton of the phrase. (The >presence of 'le re xirma' complicates the issue further) I think the equivalence of re xirma and re lo xirma has come under considerable question during the last 1 1/2 years, and my own curren belief is that it represents something orthogonal to both le and lo and therefore is ambiguous between re lo xirma and re le xirma, while having additional connotations. Off the top of my head, the last time I analyzed this I was in favor of re xirma being +specific +|- veridical +|- definite, where lo is + veridical, ambivalent on the other two with a tendency towards -specific in usage and maybe also by definition, and le is + specific and + definite, and ambivalent on veridicality. But I could be remembering incorrectly/reanalyzing this. Rather than restart the debate, I am just cc:ing Cowan and pc, who may have a better idea where this analysis stands (and more important: what Cowan has written in the refgrammar). lojbab