Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 07:22:57 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712171222.HAA19791@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: For And's pleasure X-To: a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK X-cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1142 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Dec 17 07:23:12 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU >> Then there was the use of "du" in a predicate language >> for a non-equational meaning. > >There's no problem with using {du} that way. >It is "du le": "that which was worst of all is the". The only >--More-- >way to have avoided using {du} would have been to have > "xlalymau ...... fa le" I have never seen an instance where "du le" could not be replaced by except when we are relying on the intensional aspects of "le". He is using du as a copula, no more and no less, because heisn't thinking in terms of predicates. >> Then the use of a tense in what is only >> tensed because English isn't tenseless. > >I think I'd have needed to see more context to see whether a >reference to past time was really intended. He is comparing languages, and languages are pretty much timeless entities. If it was hard to express something in Latin in the time of Caesar, it is at least as hard now. (The reverse might not be true because of forgotten knowledge, but the writer here was talking about the nature of the language). The only way that "pu" would be justified here is if the English was something like "was earlier". lojbab