On Jan 1, 2008 5:09 PM, Jorge Llambías <
jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
On Jan 1, 2008 3:16 PM, Michael Turniansky <
mturniansky@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I believe that all bridi that specify a "under conditions" place (xanka,
> pluta, zifri, frili, nandu, etc.)
Yes, sorry, meant "pluka".
>are making no truth claims about the
> presence/absence about those conditions, but are merely qualifying that
> these are the situations where X1 _would be_ xanka,etc. So Mary is anxious
> about being caught by police WERE she to speed.
Did you mean Mary WOULD BE anxious about it WERE she to speed?
Exactly. But if she is currently speeding, then she is currently anxious
> Donald Trump is worried
> about where his next meal is coming from IF he were poor, etc.
Did you mean he WOULD BE worried?
ditto.
> Without that
> place specified, it implies the person is xanka, etc. at whatever time
> and/or place narrowed down by the tenses, or else generally xanka, etc.
Blocking the possibility of having a tense is a strange thing for an
agument place to do, however.
I never claimed the converse. I said if you don't have the x3 place specified, the xanka is only qualified by the tense. I didn't say it couldn't ALSO be specified by tense if you DO have the X3 present.
Let's consider {ko'a nau ca'a xanka ko'e ko'i}: "ko'a is here-and-now
actually nervous about ko'e under conditions ko'i"
ko'a has to be a person (or some other entity capable of being
nervous) and we are claimig that that person is here-and-now
actually nervous. No problem there.
ko'e is an event, and that event is making ko'a nervous. It may be
an event that is actually happening, or it may be a potential event,
since both types of event are capable of making people nervous.
No problem there either. We could specify {lo nu ca'a broda}
{lo nu po'u broda} if it's not clear whether the event is actual or
merely potential. Mary could be here-an-now nervous about
actually having been caught, or about being caught eventually.
Agree
But what is ko'i? Is it an event that is contributing to make ko'a
nervous, i.e. one without which ko'a would not be nervous, or is
it just a description of the here-and-now cirumstances, that
which happens to be the case in the background but is not
contributing to make ko'a nervous?
Closer to the first. It is a condition without which ko'a would not be nervous, but while the nervousness is in the present, the event may or may not be. Consider:
Today, Mary is nervous about having cancer, under conditions of seeing the doctor.
Her current mental state? Unknown. Can we tell if she has gone to the doctor, or will be going to see the doctor tomorrow, or ever? No. But we might be using this sentence to explain why Mary HASN'T gone to a doctor in 20 years, because she might have cancer. As long as she doesn't go, she isn't worried about the possibility (blissful ignorance).
20 years ago, Mary was not nervous about having cancer. (x3 unspecfied, so she was definitely not nervous about that possibility under any and all conditions).
Tomorrow, Mary will be worried about having cancer, under conditions of not seeing the doctor today. (Fickle Mary! If she doesn't go right now, she WILL be worried in 24 hours time. But right now, she's of unknown state).
Neither option is very satisfying. If it's just the background, why
is it such an important information that it needs to be part of
the place structure? Most gismu don't have an "under conditons"
place and yet all events happen under some background
circumstances.
If it's a necessary condition for ko'a being nervous, then how
is x3 different from x2? Why do we need to split that which
is making ko'a nervous into two separate bits?
Hey, I don't know. Why do we have to split something that is known (djuno) into a fact (x2) and a subject (x3)? I dind't make up this language :-)
(reminder to everyone, I'm not in any way an "official" lojbanist, so nothing I say should be treated as received truth. This is jsut my own understanding of the gismu).
--gejyspa