From LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Sat Mar 6 22:49:20 2010 Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list Date: Tue Apr 15 11:05:15 1997 From: John Cowan Organization: Lojban Peripheral Subject: Re: CPE: Corliss Lamont X-To: Lojban List To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2350 X-From-Space-Date: Tue Apr 15 11:05:15 1997 X-From-Space-Address: - Message-ID: Lee Daniel Crocker wrote: > I don't think that works at all. Even though neither "thick" > nor "finger" fills a place of the other here, there should be > no question that tsudegji is a kind of finger, and degro'u is > a kind of thickness--perhaps one could describe a branch as > being finger-thick. Surely one should not abandon the basic > rule that a tanru is a kind of (its tertau)? This invocation of the "basic rule" is superficially correct, but actually conceals a deep flaw (one that most English-speakers tend to make from time to time): "rotsu" as a noun does not mean "thickness", but "thick thing". Being a "finger" is no more fundamental in Lojban than being a "thick thing". The term "degro'u" in fact can be interpreted as either a symmetric or an asymmetric lujvo: in the first case, it means simply "that which is a finger and a thick thing"; in the second case, it might well mean "that which is thick by standard a finger", and describe a branch or other such long thin object. Per contra, "tsudegji" has an asymmetrical interpretation as "finger that is a component of a thick thing". BTW, there is a separate gismu "tamji" for thumb/hallux/pollex. > > There are some cases, like {ji'ervi'o}, where it seems at first > > that both expansions can be made: something that is permanent > > in being alive, or the symetrical one, something that is both alive > > and permanent. But this latter form I find kind of twisted, ... > > Again, I don't see that. Either it's a permanent kind of living, > if it's the living you want to emphasize in the structure; or it's > a living kind of permanence, if you want to emphasize the latter. > I don't think "alive and permanent" is really an option unless you > want to say so explicitly with a connective. In this case, I think > either one works fine. Symmetrical lujvo are well-established in the language: "blanyzdani" means a house which is blue, or a blue thing which is a house, as you will. On one view, indeed, the asymmetrical lujvo are actually elliptical: asymmetric "degro'u" can be understood as "te ke degji je te rotsu". See the lists of tanru at the end of Chapter 5 for more insight into asymmetrical and symmetrical tanru/lujvo. -- John Cowan cowan@ccil.org e'osai ko sarji la lojban