Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 19:13:00 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712130013.TAA24906@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS Sender: Lojban list From: JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS Subject: Re: ka'e X-To: lojban To: John Cowan Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1483 X-From-Space-Date: Fri Dec 12 19:13:11 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU Lojbab: >Thinking over what I said about the meanings of CAhA cmavo, and seeing >that Jorge wrote a few days ago that ca'a implied ka'e, I want to opine >that in general we would use ka'e to talk about innate capabilities of >the sort that can manifest themselves without substantial alteration of >their nature. The problem I see with this is that it seems to rely on the innate capabilities of the x1sumti only. >We would not say that "lo remna ka'e vofli" even if we >define that what someone does in an airplane or even more limitedly, a >human propelled airplane is "flying". Would you say {lo remna ka'e cadzu}? Wouldn't it depend on what goes in the x2 place? For example, a sidewalk may be something innately walkable by humans, but a frozen lake is not anymore innately walkable by humans than a human is innately capable of flying in an airplane, is it? Actually I'm not sure whether it is or not. I'm not comfortable with the concept of innateness. Is a sidewalk innately walkable by ants, for example? >This is a restriction on the meaning I stated above for ka'e, since not >everything that can happen can do so by the nature of the relationship >or its participants. The problem is how do you decide whether a relationship holds "by nature" or by some other reason. >ca'a thus seems totally orthogonal in meaning to the other members of >CAhA. Which in itself is kind of weird. There is then no CAhA to mean "possibly" as oposed to "actually"? co'o mi'e xorxes