In a message dated 10/7/2001 11:27:13 PM Central Daylight Time, xod@sixgirls.org writes:
> --- In lojban@y..., "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@l...> wrote:
> > >>Once {ce'u} was introduced into the picture, he
> > >>contends, {ka} is about properties, not qualities.
> > >That is not what the cmavo list says, nor what the gismu list says
> when it
> > >refers to qualities and ka in the same place, and it is not a
> requirement
> > >of the *grammar* that ka be solely about ce'u. That is a usage
> issue; it
> > >can be left to usage.
> >
> >The cmavo list and the gismu list don't say much of anything.
> Furthermore,
> >the cmavo list and the gismu list were written in ignorance of
> {ce'u};
> >*obviously* they don't speak of properties. The reference grammar
> steers
> >{ka} away from quality, and towards property, by implying that every
> {ka}
> >has a {ce'u}.
>
> Which is funny since ce'u wasn't introduced until the refgrammar was
> 95%
> done. And I read and reviewed the book and think I understood most of
> it,
> without understanding ce'u a bit (at the time).
>
> >This means, ipso facto, that the meaning of {ka} has >changed. You
> can disagree with this, and say that your understanding >of {ka} must
> remain --- and as a result, that {leka mi xendo} must still >mean "my
> kindness", since it can be taken as not having an implicit {ce'u} >in
> there at all.
>
> With no context "leka mi xendo" means NOTHING. In a sumti that
> demands a ce'u of any ka filling it, it presumably implies a ce'u in
> x2 using the ellipsis rules. In a sumti that doesn't demand a ce'u it
> is ambiguous without further context: "le ka mi xendo cu pluka do" or
> "mi pensi le si'o ka mi xendo" - sorry but I can't think of what a
> ce'u would add in either case. Likewise imagine your dicra example
> below with x1 left zo'e.
I recall the difference between "quality" and "property" being that {ka
ce'u prami} is the quality of loving something, and that {ka mi prami} is
the property of my love for something. Or maybe vice versa, but that's not
the point. My point is that the former really is what we understand by ka,
in the modern usage. And that the latter is actually {jei mi prami}, the
amount of truth of the statement that I love something.
Oy g.K.! I have been following the reform party line on this so long that I did not stop to look at it until I happened on this note fresh from working with functions. And then, blam! While I disagree with Lojban that it was the most common use of {ka} in the old days, {leka mi prami do} and the like have a pefectly clear meaning and the one Lojbab set for them. It is not {le du'u ... ce'u ...} but rather the qualitative correlate of {le ni mi prami do} (and not {le jei mi prami do} neither). The appropriate things to put before {ka mi prmi do} are things like the Lojban for "madly, wildly, deeply" (take it, Michael!) or "wanly" or whatever is the property of my loving thee "How do I love thee," not "How much do I love thee" nor, as in the bad jokes, "In what ways do I love thee." "The property of" turns out to be ambiguous and we pursued it down different lines. But one line ended in {du'u} and the functions to that, properties. The other line can then stick with {ka} -- it gives rise to another whole class of second order properties, of course, by using {ce'u}, for comparing the quality of my love for thee with my love for she -- or Trimalchio's love for thee, for that matter.
So, Lojbab's old {ka} can remain {ka}; the other old {ka} becomes {du'u} with explicit {ce'u}. And the anomolous case of both {ka} and {du'u} being the same, with only the latter fitting the general pattern, disappears. And the parallel between quantity and quality is restored.
Sorry I noted this, since it is a correction that really needs to be made and my suggestions tend to be dismissed as weird or wrong.
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