From Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de Thu Mar 29 10:31:14 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_4); 29 Mar 2001 18:31:13 -0000 Received: (qmail 54740 invoked from network); 29 Mar 2001 18:31:06 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l8.egroups.com with QMQP; 29 Mar 2001 18:31:06 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO jj.egroups.com) (10.1.10.91) by mta1 with SMTP; 29 Mar 2001 18:31:05 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: Ti@fa-kuan.muc.de Received: from [10.1.2.55] by jj.egroups.com with NNFMP; 29 Mar 2001 18:31:05 -0000 Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2001 18:31:01 -0000 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: the reason for x4 of {djuno}? Message-ID: <99vv15+qlop@eGroups.com> User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 2312 X-Mailer: eGroups Message Poster X-Originating-IP: 193.149.49.79 From: "A.W.T." X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 6313 Since there's an ongoing controversal discussion on {djuno}, I'd be interested in hearing the considerations the creation of this gismu's place structure is based on. What has been the fundamental reason for the epistemological x4-place (with its authors now obviously not sharing the same idea on it). The (common) meaning of "to know", "wissen" ... "djuno" surely has to do with "truth". Since Lojban is a language of our (modern) times, there might be the idea underlying that there are different "truths" possible (-> Einstein etc.) This even nowadays is not a common thinking, nor was it in past times (when language was coined). As I tried to point out earlier etymologically, the European languages (Germanic, Old-Saxon, Gothic etc. and ancient Greek) all have the idea (for "wizzan" -> "to know", e.g. Greek: "eidon") of "I have seen/ recognized" (lb: {mi pu viska}). This means that those terms all have a "built-in" epistemology as a commonly shared base of undoubted evidence. (I think the ancient Greek term had been coined long before a Platon - doxa/episteme etc. - and had not been influenced by those philosophies). Also Latin "sapere" is similar ("We know what we can *taste*" - also e.g. German: "begreifen" (I know - for sure - what I can grasp/touch with my hands) - again: *one* built-in epistemology all can share. There's only *one* world the user of language live in, and *one* truth! In (ancient and modern) Chinese this seems to be the same: the character for "chih1/chi1/chy" (to know) etymologically is composed of "arrow" (shih3/shi3/shyy) and "mouth" (k'ou3/kou3/koou), and that's what says the glose: "The knowledge that makes a man able to give an opinion upon a subject, with the rapidity and precision of an arrow hitting the marks". IMHO the kou-part most probably just symbolizes a dot/ mark/target, hence expressing "that one can hit with an arrow" (i.e. something not too far away and clearly visible = obvious). As for myself: I don't think ever having any use for the x4-place of {djuno} and I surely won't accept another truth in my daily job dealing with murder cases than the *one* ;-) (which very often proves to be complicated enough). co'omi'e .aulun. (zo'o noi *krici* le du'u su'o ki'orgra belo bakre'u cu zbasu lo xamgu stasu)