From arosta@uclan.ac.uk Tue Nov 13 05:51:28 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: arosta@uclan.ac.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 13 Nov 2001 13:51:28 -0000 Received: (qmail 71830 invoked from network); 13 Nov 2001 13:51:27 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m9.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 13 Nov 2001 13:51:27 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO com1.uclan.ac.uk) (193.61.255.3) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 13 Nov 2001 13:51:27 -0000 Received: from gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk by com1.uclan.ac.uk with SMTP (Mailer); Tue, 13 Nov 2001 13:27:28 +0000 Received: from DI1-Message_Server by gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk with Novell_GroupWise; Tue, 13 Nov 2001 14:03:25 +0000 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.2 Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 14:03:02 +0000 To: lojban Subject: ca'a/ka'e (was: Re: [lojban] Introduction, and zutse/se sutse Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline From: And Rosta X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 12080 >>> 11/12/01 06:33pm >>> #Since I'm a newbie, I have what may be a newbie question. :) The other d= ay #I was chatting with some folks on us.opirc.org#lojban, (I apologize, but I #don't remember the names of those involved. Most certainly they were all #much more experienced in lojban than I.) and someone said #something to the effect of: .ia ro lo stizu cu se zutse # #I interpreted this to mean that all stizu's (chairs) are also (se zutse)'s #(things sat upon). Not so sure I agreed with this, I asked whether stizu'= s #were se zutse's even if nobody was sitting in them. "Sure they are," was #the answer, with the subsequent discussion basically saying that stizu's a= re #se zutse's because someone can sit in/on them. If this is really the case= , #I think something in my understanding of lojban needs to be adjusted. You will have gathered from replies that this is not a newbieish question but in fact a deep one and, moreover, one that I think we haven't got our heads round properly. As other answers have said, the confusion arises from the omissibility of ca'a/ka'e. "da poi ke'a ka'e broda" and "ko'a ka'e broda" mean that da/ko'a is a broda in either the real or an imaginary world (Hence, e.g. Sherlock Holmes is a ka'e detective, Homer is a ka'e poet, Atlantis is a ka'e island, Jesus is a ka'e man), and makes no claim about whether or not da/ko'a itself exists in the real world. "da poi ke'a ka'e broda" and "ko'a ka'e broda" mean that da/ko'a is a broda in the real world. (NB 'Real World' is=20 defined relative to the discourse; it is not absolute. Within Sherlock Holmes stories he is a ca'a detective.)=20 In **usage** there is a very strong tendency to omit ca'a but=20 not to omit ka'e, EXCEPT with "nu", where the default is ka'e. The refgram and other exegetic materials explain "ka'e" in terms of "potentiality", but I think that is misleading. Sherlock Holmes is not 'potentially' a detective, and when people say "mi djica lo nu do cliva", their sentence does not mean=20 "There is something I desire that potentially is an event of you=20 leaving"; it means "There is something I desire that in a real or imaginary world is an event of you leaving". Returning to the actual example you asked about, "ro lo=20 stizu cu se zutse", you need to fill in the ca'a/ka'e before you can evaluate the truth-conditions. Your interlocutors should have said not "Sure they are" but "You have erroneously read "ca'a" where in fact "ka'e" was intended". "ro lo ca'a stizu cu ca'a se zutse" is certainly false. "ro lo ca'a/ka'e stizu cu ka'e se zutse" is true, given a cooperative understanding of imaginary worlds restricted to those that conform to the known laws of chairhood and sitting. --And.