From robin@bilkent.edu.tr Mon Oct 25 09:40:10 2004 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 25 Oct 2004 09:40:11 -0700 (PDT) Received: from manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr ([139.179.30.24]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1CM7sF-0003GW-3X for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 25 Oct 2004 09:39:12 -0700 Received: by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix, from userid 72) id F0D3C26FE2; Mon, 25 Oct 2004 16:53:06 +0300 (EEST) Received: from [139.179.111.103] (ppp103.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr [139.179.111.103]) by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 96BBA26EFB for ; Mon, 25 Oct 2004 16:53:04 +0300 (EEST) Message-ID: <417D0787.5040902@bilkent.edu.tr> Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 17:02:47 +0300 From: robin User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040914 X-Accept-Language: en, en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: possessives References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed X-archive-position: 8854 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: robin@bilkent.edu.tr Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list Mr Ekted wrote: > > Hi all, trying to get back into lojban after taking a long break. I am > curious about pe, po, po'e. There seems to be some room for idiom in > their descriptions in the level0 book. Does the word "possession" > really mean ownership, or is it intended to simply mean association? > My hair will always be my hair, but if I cut it off and give it to > you, it is now "also" your hair by possession. How do you specify the > difference? I'd say it was simultaneously "loi kerfa po'e mi" and "loi kerfa po do". It is inalienably associated with me by virtue of having my DNA, and alienably yours by virtue of legal possession. "po'e" implies that there is some unchangable quality which links the possessed to the possessor (in the broadest possible sense of possess). > Also: > > my country > > If you used po'e, does this specifically say "you ARE the country", or > can it mean a lifelong loyalty/nationalism? I'd say it implied that you were born in that country. > > my soul > > If you use po, does it imply that you feel you can lose your soul, as > opposed to po'e? I don't think you could meaningfully say "lo pruxi po mi" unless you were some being that could not only lose its soul but swap souls around at will (I'm ignoring the question of how, if one accepts the existence of souls, there vould be an "I" distinct from my soul). Otherwise it's like any other part of you. My hair is still "loi kerfa po'e mi" even if I cut it off and sell it to a wig-maker; I assume the same would apply to my soul. Even if I sell my soul to the Devil, he would presumably refer to it as "lo pruxi po'e la robin." > > Also, ising using pe considered appropriate in all cases when po/po'e > are more appropriate, without any notions of insult? "pe" is simply less specific (it's analagous to the all-purpose "nu" for states/events). I don't see why it should be insulting, and from the point of view of tact, "pe" might even be preferable, since you are avoiding the question of possession and alienability (it's certainly the one I'd use for "speni"). In most of the cases you describe, I would in any case use the shorthand "loi mi kerfa," "lo mi pruxi" etc. robin.tr -- "His youngest brother, Tendzin Choegyal, says one of the Dalai Lama's greatest finds of recent years was super-glue -- second, in fact, only to the more recent discovery of super-glue remover." Robin Turner IDMYO Bilkent Universitesi Ankara 06533 Turkey www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin