From sentto-44114-3151-961284598-mark=kli.org@returns.onelist.com Sat Jun 17 23:27:08 2000 Return-Path: Delivered-To: shoulson-kli@meson.org Received: (qmail 25493 invoked from network); 17 Jun 2000 23:27:07 -0000 Received: from zash.lupine.org (205.186.156.18) by pi.meson.org with SMTP; 17 Jun 2000 23:27:07 -0000 Received: (qmail 9891 invoked by uid 40001); 17 Jun 2000 23:30:07 -0000 Delivered-To: kli-mark@kli.org Received: (qmail 9888 invoked from network); 17 Jun 2000 23:30:07 -0000 Received: from ck.egroups.com (208.50.144.69) by zash.lupine.org with SMTP; 17 Jun 2000 23:30:07 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-44114-3151-961284598-mark=kli.org@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.10.37] by ck.egroups.com with NNFMP; 17 Jun 2000 23:29:58 -0000 Received: (qmail 18733 invoked from network); 17 Jun 2000 23:29:57 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by m3.onelist.org with QMQP; 17 Jun 2000 23:29:57 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO hotmail.com) (216.33.241.122) by mta2 with SMTP; 17 Jun 2000 23:29:57 -0000 Received: (qmail 20555 invoked by uid 0); 17 Jun 2000 23:29:56 -0000 Message-ID: <20000617232956.20554.qmail@hotmail.com> Received: from 200.42.152.65 by www.hotmail.com with HTTP; Sat, 17 Jun 2000 16:29:56 PDT X-Originating-IP: [200.42.152.65] To: lojban@egroups.com From: "Jorge Llambias" MIME-Version: 1.0 Mailing-List: list lojban@egroups.com; contact lojban-owner@egroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list lojban@egroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: Date: Sat, 17 Jun 2000 16:29:56 PDT Subject: [lojban] A defense of dead horse beating Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There have been many comments lately about the seemingly neverending discussions on the list about some issues. I know these comments were made mostly in jest, but there is the risk that people who have joined recently may conclude that these discussions are pointless and that we never learn anything from them. Well, speaking for myself, I have learned a lot in most rounds of revisiting the same or similar questions. This is because there is always new people participating who contribute a fresh perspective, which those of us who have been here longer have to integrate with what we've been able to sort out for ourselves in the past. I think it is a mistake to assume that since the language is baselined then everything has already been settled. On the contrary, most things haven't. As an example, I still haven't been able to figure out a comfortable way of saying "even", as in "even the cat wants to go". I usually use {ji'a} for that, but I know it doesn't really capture the whole meaning. I expect what will happen is that either {ji'a} will take this additional meaning of "even", or, more likely, since {ji'a} already has a fairly useful meaning, some other less useful cmavo will extend its own range of meaning to cover that. A new cmavo is out of the question. Even one of the XVV form won't do because I would have to explain it every time I use it. These kinds of issues I face every time I write something in Lojban, and the only way they can be settled is by trying out possible solutions, using and adapting what we have, and seeing how others deal with them. Anyway, all this introduction was because I want to again say something about le/lo, so I felt I needed to apologize and justify myself... :) It occurs to me that sometimes the le/lo distiction is treated as if it was a gender difference: veridical and non-veridical gender. So someone asks, do unicorns take the veridical or the non-veridical gender article? Does 'mother of god' take the veridical or non-veridical gender article? This is wrong. The choice to use le or lo has nothing to do with the meaning of the word 'unicorn' or the meaning of 'mother of god'. It depends only on what kind of reference I need to make. Just as in English sometimes I have to talk of "a unicorn" and sometimes about "the unicorn", in Lojban sometimes I have to talk of {lo pavyselcirna} and sometimes of {le pavyseljirna}, whatever {pavyseljirna} means. It is not a gender so that one would be right and the other wrong, it depends on what I am saying about the referent, not about the referent's epistemological status. Usually both will be right, each used to make a different claim. These are all possible: lo xanri mlatu - an imaginary cat le xanri mlatu - the imaginary cat lo zasti mlatu - an existing cat le zasti mlatu - the existing cat le/lo do not correspond exactly to the/an, of course, but fairly closely. In any case, the meaning of {zasti} is not incorporated into the article {lo}, and of course neither is {xanri} in {le}. co'o mi'e xorxes ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Missing old school friends? Find them here: http://click.egroups.com/1/5534/3/_/17627/_/961284560/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe, send mail to lojban-unsubscribe@onelist.com