From rob@twcny.rr.com Mon Aug 13 16:35:18 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: rob@telenet.net X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_1); 13 Aug 2001 23:35:17 -0000 Received: (qmail 87713 invoked from network); 13 Aug 2001 23:35:16 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m8.onelist.org with QMQP; 13 Aug 2001 23:35:16 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO telenet.net) (204.97.152.225) by mta1 with SMTP; 13 Aug 2001 23:35:16 -0000 Received: from riff (ip-209-23-14-42.modem.logical.net [209.23.14.42]) by telenet.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id TAA01039 for ; Mon, 13 Aug 2001 19:35:13 -0400 Received: from rob by riff with local (Exim 3.22 #1 (Debian)) id 15WR7y-0000n4-00 for ; Mon, 13 Aug 2001 19:28:10 -0400 Date: Mon, 13 Aug 2001 19:28:09 -0400 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] ka + makau (was: ce'u (was: vliju'a Message-ID: <20010813192809.A590@twcny.rr.com> Reply-To: rob@twcny.rr.com References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.18i X-Is-It-Not-Nifty: www.sluggy.com Sender: Rob Speer From: Rob Speer X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 9543 I'm a bit surprised by the sudden urge people have to redefine generally accepted uses of {kau}. On Wed, Aug 08, 2001 at 03:33:16AM +0100, And Rosta wrote: > OTOH, you could insist that the B sentences would have to be: > > ma kau goi ko'a zo'u mi cucli tu'odu'u ko'a cliva > ma kau goi ko'a zo'u mi do frica tu'odu'u ce'u prami ko'a > ma kau poi cmene mi ku'o goi ko'a zo'u I changed ko'a And I do. The other sentences you used have been established by the Book and usage to all have meaning (A). --- In response to another thread which I didn't have time to reply to then: to assert that abstractions in Lojban are instantly replaced by their referents is absurd. "I know how tall Bob is" does not mean "I know 150 centimeters" because "evaluating" the abstraction like this removes all meaning that it had. Similarly, in Lojban, {mi djuno le ni galtu po la bob} expresses a different (and much more sensical) fact than {mi djuno le 150 centre}. It doesn't even mean {mi djuno lenu le ni galtu po la bob. centre li 150}, because you're not saying how specifically you know Bob's height, and you're not communicating to the listener what that height is. (The word 'centre' looks odd. I was thinking of using the longer 'centymitre' for its appeal as a cognate.) So someone suggested that any {jei} abstraction should be treated as if it wasn't there and replaced by 'true' or 'false', immediately. First of all, this would require some rule which makes {lejei nei jitfa} ungrammatical, or else what would you put in its place? In addition, this makes the vast majority of sentences involving {jei} useless. {ni} doesn't work this way. {nu} definitely doesn't work this way (events are difficult to 'know' out of context). So why should {jei}? -- Rob Speer