[lojban-beginners] Re: Debug my propaganda?

["Turniansky, Michael" <MICHAEL.A.TURNIANSKY@saic.com>]

> > > But consider: if this example is false, then so
> > > must be "mi pu'o klama le zarci" and many similar claims.
> > conversational point of view, we can take this to mean: "mi pacna le
nu
> > pu'o klama le zarci kei [da]" or "mi prupla fi le nu pu'o klama le
> > zarci" in which case it is true whether or not it actually occurs.
> 
> I'd tend to take it that the speaker actually believes the simpler
> statement true (and may correct it later if appropriate), which is of
> course acceptable by my definition of truth but not by yours.  At
> least we each seem to have internally consistent mechanisms for
> interpreting claims :)

  I think we really don't have any disagreement over explicitly tensed
bridi.  We both agree a person may make a claim of a future event
because they believe/intend it to be true.  (Although as they say in
Yiddish, "Man trakht unt Gott lakht" (="loi prenu cu prupla seki'u le nu
la cev mi'afra [le nu no'a]"), which is why an Orthodox Jew will not
usually talk about a future event (e.g. "I'll see you Friday") without
adding the Hebrew "im yirtzah HaShem" (=.ijanai la cev djica le nu
go'i") )

   Where we appear to disagree is those bridi without any explicit tense
("mu verba", "lenu mi tadni la lojban cu jeftu lipavo", etc.) where I
believe it refers to the [asserter's belief of the] state of events at
the moment, and you believe it might be true for any set of
circumstances.  The crux is chap. 10, example 1.1:
"1.1)  mi klama le zarci
    I go-to the market.

can be understood as: 
I went to the market. I am going to the market. I have gone to the
market. I will go to the market. I continually go to the market. 
as well as many other possibilities: context resolves which is correct."

  "Aha!" you say, "It sides with me.  It can mean all of those."  Yes,
but my focus is on the last sentence, context.  And when people talk
about things without qualifying, I aver, they intend to mean how they
perceive the current state of the world.  So you can safely state "lenu
mi tadni la lojban cu jeftu lipavo" and the listener will understand you
that you _have_ studied lojban for 14 weeks, but if you want to make
sure he understands you are not yet done, put in the ca'o, as I
previously said (and apparently xorxes agrees with), and we can both be
satisfied, since it's no longer untensed.


            --gejsypa