Re: [lojban] Frank likes Betty more than Mary

[Logical Language Group <lojban@lojban.org>]

At 05:56 AM 8/19/01 -0700, Nick Nicholas wrote:

> http://nuzban.wiw.org/wiki/index.php?Frank%20likes%20Betty%20more%20than%20Mary
>
> Those of you familiar with Lojban since 1991, prepare to exclaim "D'oh!"
>
> (Btw, Jay, thanks for the rejoinder! :-)

I don't get it. Your formulation existed, and in fact something almost 
identical is in the refgrammar as an example of ce'u: see p260. That form 
of zmadu was in use from the time we created the place structure of ce'u, 
except that without ce'u we just left the "ce'u" place empty with 
assumption that zo'e could mean two different things in a comparative. I 
even found a Nick Nicholas usage with zmadu and leni back on 9/26/91 in a 
letter to Helsem. No ce'u but apparently there was no question that the 
meaning was obvious.

pg 203 is in the tense and modal chapter and explores tense and modal 
formulations of comparisons. One point of the examples is to show how "ne" 
is required in certain modal constructions. But always, the use of modals 
allows one to stress a relationship (in this case nelci) and leave the 
comparison to be incidental.

lojbab
--
lojbab lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org