Date: Sat, 29 Nov 1997 03:21:49 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199711290821.DAA18630@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: still on nu & fasnu... X-To: lee@piclab.com X-cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1998 X-From-Space-Date: Sat Nov 29 03:21:50 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU >> >Of course, if "fasnu" means an actual event, then what I oroginally >> >said was correct, and {lo nu broda cu fasnu} is false. >> >> Which it cannot be since that is the definition of fasnu and nu (both). >> This is an echo of ckaji/ka and klani/ni > >The refgram not only fails to claim this, but is pretty clear in >disclaiming it: > > "The following table gives each abstractor, an English gloss for it, > a Lojban gismu which is connected with it (more or less remotely: the > associations between abstractors and gismu are meant more as memory > hooks than for any kind of inference),..." > >This sounds pretty clear to me that {lo nu broda cu fasnu} can indeed >--More-- >be false, with no difficulty at all. This seems natural and useful >to me: the actual predication of an event happening via {fasnu} can be >used to give it tense, quantity, and other features (like reality), >while {nu} can remain abstract. That's what I wanted to say, but answering And tends to put be in positions where by hands trip over the keyboard and I say things I don;t mean. >Of course, that makes a lot of current >uses of {nu} to refer to actual events ambiguous; but as long as we >define it as such, semantically ambiguous is fine. Much of the language is semantically ambiguous. We did not try otherwise. >but as long as we >define it as such, and further define {fasnu} to mean actual occurrence, >we can choose the level of ambiguity we want. Agreed. Glad someone can see through the fog of my thinking in the middle of the night. lojbab ---- lojbab lojbab@access.digex.net Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/" Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.