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Re: [lojban-beginners] Who created the universe? no da, zi'o, etc.



As I understand it

a asserts that the world was not, in fact created; i.e. it asserts that {lo munje cu na se cupra da}
b is a very non-informative answer, saying something like {lo te cupra be lo munje cu zasti .iju lo cupra be lo munje cu zasti} (there was a processes by which the world was created, but there may or may not have been a creator)
c would not be an answer (since "na'i" is not a sumti), and IIRC, {na'i go'i} might be more acceptable, but it would indicate that it doesn't even make sense to talk about the creation of the world, or that something outside the bridi is wrong.

I'm not sure about the backcounting rules, but {ri} seems like an acceptable response (but not the one I'd use) and {vo'a} seems weird. I'd say {lo go'i} if I meant to respond with the world created itself.

Also, I think for f, you mean {ri noi cevni}, unless you mean {ri poi cevni fi ke'a} rather than {ri poi ke'a cevni}, and even so, it's confusing. Using {poi}, you're restricting your claim to only worlds the fit in some place (probably the first) of {cevni}, while using {noi} you're providing additional information that the world is god (or, less likely, that the world is god's domain, since you didn't specify with {ke'a}).

I'm sorry if I didn't fully address your question or if I've confused you further (or if I'm just dead wrong; I'm still learning too). Please feel free to follow-up with more questions.

On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 12:46 PM, paul_faehrbrorn <pa.fae@gmx.de> wrote:
Hi everybody,

I have been reading about Lojban for quite while now, more or less
read through the CLL, and started playing around with the language.
So, I do have a grasp of moderately simple sentences (with a very
restricted vocabulary, that is), but I often find myself bumping my
mind either on Lojban grammar or on the underlying logic in general.
Which is probably why Lojban is such a nice thing. :)

I have now succeeded in confusing myself most utterly with the
following (made-up) Lojban question and answers:

 lo munje cu se cupra ma

a) no da
b) zi'o
c) na'i
d) vo'a
e) ri
f) ri poi cevni [feeling a little bit panentheistic here ...?]

Now, my questions are partly about the meaning (in this context) of
the cmavo involved, and partly about syntactical correctness:

If the premise be that the world as such has not been produced/built/
created by any entity (so, more or less the common sense assumption
that the world just there, and that's about it ...)---could anybody
please help me understand the difference in meaning between answers a)
and b), and b) and c)?

I think that a) is about an empty set of world-creators. But could we,
then, still say that the world is "se cupra"? Probably yes, since, if
not, would a) not *entail c)?

b) looks like a normal "fill-in-the-sumti" answer to a "ma"-question,
but does in fact turn the bridi "se cupra" into the different bridi
"se cupra zi'o", doesn't it? Is that grammatically, pragmatically
possible? What does it mean?

And c) seems to claim that it is not meaningful to say of the world
that it is created by somebody---does that mean that "lo munje cu se
cupra no da" isn't meaningful, either?

And, finally, if I were to claim that the world created itself
(whatever that may mean), would answers d) to f) be grammatically
correct, and would they refer to "lo munje", as intended?

(If something like this has already been discussed, could you point me
to it? I didn't find it then, sorry.)

Thanks
Paul Fährbrorn

PS: I'm learning Lojban through English, but I'm not a native English
speaker. Please be forbearing with regard to quirky English.

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--
mu'o mi'e .arpis.

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