Date: Sat, 15 Nov 1997 20:09:51 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199711160109.UAA27505@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Lee Daniel Crocker Sender: Lojban list From: "Lee Daniel Crocker (none)" Organization: Piclab (http://www.piclab.com/) Subject: Re: `at least one ' vrs `one or more' X-To: Lojban Group To: John Cowan In-Reply-To: <199711160020.QAA00276@red.colossus.net> from "Thanatos" at Nov 15, 97 05:20:15 pm Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1526 X-From-Space-Date: Sat Nov 15 20:09:54 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU > I grepped the reference grammar to no avail. How does one speak of > hypothetical entities? That-which-doesn't-exist-but-for-discussion-is a > whatever. For example, "A duck walks into a bar" {le datka cu cadzu le > kafybarja}. I'm not talking about a real duck. I'm not even calling a > real object a duck. Could {le datka} refer to my non-existant, > hypothetical duck? If so, then {le nu} could be a non-existant, > hypothetical event, no? Yes, we can always wiggle out with the {le} hedge. {le datka} and {le nu cadzu} can refer to anything, real or hypothetical; that's the nature of {le}. The question is about gismu that take "event" places, and possibly {lo nu broda}. If, for example, you are waiting for a duck to enter the bar, are you in fact waiting for an event, or are you waiting for the proposition that some event occurs to become true? While it might be "cleaner" in some sense to fix all those gismu definitions to do the latter, I think that's neither necessary nor desirable. I can't see any problem at all with {lo nu broda}s that aren't actual {lo fasnu}, and that's much more consistent with the rest of the refgram, and the {du'u} constructions are just awkwardness without extra clarity. -- Lee Daniel Crocker "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC