Date:  Wed, 17 Dec 1997 09:25:31 -0500 (EST)
Message-Id: <199712171425.JAA23376@locke.ccil.org>
Reply-To: And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>
Organization: University of Central Lancashire
Subject:      Re: For And's pleasure
X-To:         LOJBAN@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR
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Content-Length: 1668
X-From-Space-Date: Wed Dec 17 09:25:32 1997
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> >> 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
> <null> except when we are relying on the intensional aspects of "le".

The "intensional aspects" are ineluctably there.

{X du lo broda} is equivalent to {x broda}, but {X du le broda}
is not. This is because of both the specificity and nonveridicality
elements of {le}.

> He is using du as a copula, no more and no less, because he isn't
> thinking in terms of predicates.

Maybe so, but I wouldn't be so hasty to make that judgement.
Perhaps you know the author and have additional cause to hold
their abilities in low esteem.

> >> 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".

I'd agree with you, based on what you say. Still, I wouldn't
exactly say that the text is slathered with my contempt.

--And