Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 21:28:56 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199710280228.VAA08121@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: HACKER G N Sender: Lojban list From: HACKER G N Subject: Re: Dvorak (& Lojban) X-To: bob@rattlesnake.com X-cc: lojban@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: Status: O X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2013 X-From-Space-Date: Mon Oct 27 21:29:02 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU On Mon, 27 Oct 1997 bob@megalith.rattlesnake.com wrote: > ... Everything I can say in English is > harder for me to say in Lojban, .... > > To me, the following is easier in Lojban: > > .i lo mi ke xekri bunre mlatu zu'a vu pu'o kalte le cmacu > > than English: > > Far to the left of me, one or more entitites that truly is or are > one or more than one dark or black type of brown type of cat, and > is `mine' or `ours' in some fashion, is or was or will be on the > verge of hunting what I designate as mouse although it may be > something else. > > Even if you know the context (I only have one black/brown cat, I am > looking out my window on my left into the field), the English is still > quite hard: > > Far to the left of me, my dark brown cat has not yet begun to hunt > a mouse although I am confident she is in the state that is prior > to the beginning of a hunt. > > English lacks spatial tenses like {zu'a} and event contours like > {pu'o}, so an English translation is either longer or less definitive > than the Lojban. > Where English is less definitive, Lojbanists say, "English is less definitive!" Where Lojban is less definitive, Lojbanists say, "English overspecifies!" It's all so polemical. You sound like Esperantists. :) Looking at your above sentence, and before reading your English translation, I would simply have said, "Far to the left of me, a dark brown cat of mine is about to catch the mouse." That's not difficult to say and I could have sworn it conveyed all the *relevant* information. Notice I say "a dark brown cat of mine" rather than "my dark brown cat", because the former implies that you don't have in mind a specific cat, which "lo" clearly dictates. This goes back to issues of specificity and veridicality, which have been hammered out in previous threads. Speaking for myself, I think using "lo" when you really do have in mind something specific is simply incorrect and is only ever going to cause confusion. Geoff