Re: [lojban] gerku zdani

[pycyn@aol.com]

In a message dated 4/18/2001 5:21:05 PM Central Daylight Time,
biomass@hobbiton.org writes:

ko'a zdani be lo nargerku

or, if you wish,

ko'a zdani be lo na'e gerku



"x is a house for non-dogs".

xu ko'a gerku zdani

According to the definition of a tanru, there has to exist any relatio
between ko'a, gerku and zdani. Well, here, it exists. This actually means
that any <broda> is a <brode broda>, for any given broda and brode, since
you can arbitrarily add 'na' as you wish to make any relation correct.


I think tanru are defined incorrectly as 'having any relation', and should
be defined as 'having an unspecified, implicit relation', parallel to
zo'e.

I just don't follow this at all. What definition of "tanru" requires 'any
relation' between seltau and tertau?  *Some* relation, maybe, but a fairly
specific one -- though not obvious necessarily to the hearer (or, if truth be
told, always to the speaker). As for {ko'a} the first place sumti in this
case, its relation to the tanru is just that: the first terbri of the bridi
of which the tanru is selbri.  So its relation is always good old
Application, the unmarked member of the Relation category.  
Now we have that ko'a is a house for something other than a dog and the
question is, is it a dog house.  The question is unanswerable with any degree
of certainty on the information given.  For one thing, we don't know what a
gerku zdani is.  But assuming that it is on the pattern of zdani lo na'e
gerku, we'd need to know a bit more about the house.  It is for a non-dog,
but it might do very well for a dog as well.  And, of course, if the tanru is
built on some other model, the fact that the house is for a non-dog (in
residence) may have nothing to do with the case at all (is it dog-shaped, for
example, or made of dog hide).
All of this being the case, I do not see how we jump from tanru being
semantically ambiguous to all selbri being tanru, if I understand "every <
broda> is a <brode broda>" correctly, nor, rather more elaborately, that
every selbri is a tanru with an arbitrary first member (and apparently an
arbitrary second one, too)  {Sidbo} is just {mlatu sidbo}?  In what sense?  
They mean the same?  Not on any reading I can make out.  What then?  And
where then does the use of {na} come in -- to make yet a third tanru that
somehow bridges the gap between the simple brivla and the first tanru?  
There may be something profound here (never mind my obvious doubts), but it
sure is not clear what it is yet.  The kindest it gets so far is that it is a
hideously obscure way of saying that you can't be sure what a tanru is from
what its components are, and that is something we knew all along -- and have
said clearly countless times.