From a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com Sat Dec 09 09:57:22 2000 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@egroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-6_3_1_3); 9 Dec 2000 17:57:22 -0000 Received: (qmail 87955 invoked from network); 9 Dec 2000 17:57:21 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m8.onelist.org with QMQP; 9 Dec 2000 17:57:21 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta05-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.45) by mta1 with SMTP; 9 Dec 2000 17:57:21 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.252.12.142]) by mta05-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.02.27 201-229-119-110) with SMTP id <20001209175719.NCQP8632.mta05-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew> for ; Sat, 9 Dec 2000 17:57:19 +0000 To: "Lojban@Egroups. Com" Subject: RE: [lojban] Bringing it about that Date: Sat, 9 Dec 2000 17:56:24 -0000 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <3A30FF41.9E959CDD@reutershealth.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 4992 John: > And Rosta wrote: Did I? When? It sounds like me, but I have no recollection of it. > > > From: pycyn@aol.com > > > > > > The focus was on, first, getting to John, since the causal words > > > seem to require (quite rightly) events in both the cause and the > > > effect places. That meant that "John" had to be subject raised > > > in the subject position, a slightly odd case. And once it was > > > entered, a deeper problem arose: if "John" had to be raised from, > > > say, "John's laughing made me hit him" to get "John made > > > me...," why doesn't "John's laughing" have to be treated as a > > > raising, since it is presumably something about it that worked > > > the effect "The fact that John's laughing was annoying made me..." > > > > I read this as a correct argument against (overzealous, > > overfastidious) sumti-raising, and the followup messages from Jorge > > &, eventually, Lojbab appear to concur. What I meant, I suppose, was "a correct argument against overzealous overfastidious avoidance of sumti-raising, or use of tu'a". > I think there is still a problem, which can be clarified by moving the > raising out of the agent place. Consider > > 1) John tried the door. > > The verbatim Lojban translation has traditionally been rejected as malglico, > because it must mean > > 2) John attempted that (something is a door) > > which sounds like carpentry rather than burglary. Instead, we must say: > > 3) John attempted that (John opens the door) > > which cannot be treated as containing a sub-event of the event mentioned > in Example 2. By contrast, "(John laughs)" is a sub-event of > "(John exists)", and as such using the latter for the former is > tolerable, if vague. My objection is to over-zealous and over-fastidious sumti-raising, which, roughly, can be taken to mean more than there is in English, or cases where you get the infinite regress that pc describes. Your example is a bit misleading, because although (1) can be paraphrased as "attempted to open", the TRY in (1) really means "perform a test upon", as in: John tried the cheese (to see what it tastes like). John tried the doorbell (to see if it works). John tried the door (to see whether it was open). Woldemar on sumti-raising, pp 266ff, uses only this misleading TRY example, and RINKA, about which I stick to my guns. Are there other more persuasive examples? I suppose I myself could nominate nitcu, djica and above all sisku, which makes sense only with a tu'a. --And.