Date: Thu, 26 Feb 1998 20:54:33 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199802270154.UAA00324@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Jorge_J._Llamb=EDas?=" Sender: Lojban list From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?Jorge_J._Llamb=EDas?=" Subject: Re: Properties etc. and the Spatial Metaphor X-To: lojban To: John Cowan X-UIDL: 250d41fabab317de345779d86288c6c8 Status: O X-Mozilla-Status: 8011 X-From-Space-Date: Mon Mar 02 13:32:12 1998 X-From-Space-Address: - Ivan: >A natlang could say that a spatial word has its principal spatial >meaning unless one or more of the argument places are occupied by >non-spatial arguments. But in Lojban there is no way to enforce >the filling of any argument place, so things like {le zdani cu >klama} will end up meaning nothing at all (they'd be trivially >true, since everything moves all the time, say, towards a state >of being older), and we don't want that to happen. If {le zdani cu klama} is trivially true because everything moves all the time towards some property, then it is trivially true in the pure spatial meaning as well, since everything moves all the time towards some place or another. But that is not the case, because {le zdani cu klama} means {le zdani cu klama zo'e zo'e zo'e zo'e}, it does not mean {le zdani cu klama da de di daxipa}. The latter is trivially true (in both the restricted and extended versions of klama). The former's truth cannot be determined without context, in either version. co'o mi'e klama