Date:  Thu, 27 Nov 1997 12:24:06 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199711271724.MAA00342@locke.ccil.org>
Reply-To: And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>
Organization: University of Central Lancashire
Subject:      Re: Events & sisku [was: le/lo]
X-To:         LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR
X-Mozilla-Status: 0011
Content-Length: 1357
X-From-Space-Date: Thu Nov 27 12:24:07 1997
X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU

Jorge:
> la djan spuda di'e la and
>
> >Well, actually, "prenu" can mean "is potentially a person"; specifically,
> >that is "ka'e prenu", but the absence of "ka'e" does not necessary
> >entail "ca'a", although "ca'a" is often the sensible default.
>
> But what kind of thing is "potentially a person"? Are we talking about
> embryos and the like, or are we talking about abstractions?
> For example, I could say "I need someone with six hands to do
> this job".  Is {lo mi se nitcu} a {ka'e prenu}? Because that is what
> we are doing to events. Events that happen, like persons, are
> objects that endure in space time. Does {ka'e} allow us to include
> things that don't have endurance in space-time?

I think that a {ka`e broda} must satisfy the general constraints
on brodahood, but it needn't exist in this universe; it might
exist in some alternate imaginary universe.

However, while this is I think the best available way to make
sense of ka`e & its ilk, it would make more sense if ka`e &
co were added to sumti (to show which universe they exist in)
rather than to selbri (where I am forced to conclude that ka`e
added to a selbri tells you which universe the x1 (after SE
conversion) exists in).

Lojbab seems somewhat unhappy with this, and anyone with an
opposing and reasonably coherent and intelligible view is
invited to present it.

--And