Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 11:15:04 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712121615.LAA06918@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: ka'e X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 1657 X-From-Space-Date: Fri Dec 12 11:15:21 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU I wrote: >"pu'i" means that it has happened, and that it can happen again. >"nu'o" means that it hasn't happened, but could happen once or more times. >"ca'a" means that it is now happening, but says nothing about any potentiality >for happening at some other time. >"ka'e" says thatit can happen, but has not necessarily happened at any time. 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. 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". It is not in the innate nature of humans to fly, but takes something external to make it possible, and we might say that "lo remna ca'a vofli (sepi'o lo vinji)". 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. ca'a thus seems totally orthogonal in meaning to the other members of CAhA. ---- 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.