Re: [lojban] Introduction, and zutse/se sutse

[pycyn@aol.com]

In a message dated 11/13/2001 6:21:38 PM Central Standard Time, jjllambias@hotmail.com writes:

la pycyn cusku di'e

>{ka'e} is glossed in terms of potentiality "is
>inherently capable of."

The problem with this gloss is that it seems to be biased
towards the x1 of the relationship. {ka'e broda} is a
relationship. Does it mean that x1 is inherently capable of
entering the relationship, or does it mean that x1, x2, x3...
are each inherently capable of entering the relationship?

I can understand a lujvo meaning "x1 is inherently capable
of x2", maybe that's what {se jinzi} means, but it is more
difficult to understand that gloss for a selbri modifier.

>Now obscure as that is in itself (is, to cite a
>frequent example here, a person born blind, without optic nerves say,
>inherently capable of seeing because he is human?)

Also, is a tree inherently capable of being seen by the blind?

Possibility makes more sense as a function for {ka'e}.
Potentiality seems more like a property of a sumti than
of a bridi.

I agree that {ka'e} is biased toward the first position and that conversion have variable fortune around it (I think that trees are inherently capable of being seen and so by blind men, assuming that they are inherently capable of seeing, but other cases are much less clear).  But {ka'e} is presumed to derive its meaning from {kakne} which clearly has just the bias mentioned, as opposed to {cumki} which is the base for "possible" (though the nearest cmavo to it is "probable," also covered, more regularly, by {la'a}  -- there are times when I sorta see thinkit's point).  So generally, events are inherently possible only in case some present event is capable in a  {kakne} sense of evolving into them.  This is one thing we mean by possible, but not the one that gets the most work out.  Now, I would never propose violating the freeze, but if I were to, this would be a place where I would be tempted to, for good logical reasons: probably making {cu'o} parallel {ka'e} and get probability values out of {la'a} somehow.
In the meantime, if we want to talk about possible events we are left with "is possible" {le nu .... kei cumki} or something about a "present event" being inherently able to give rise to the one sought, both very periphrastic relative to English -- or even logic.  Right for explaining the relation between {stizu} and {se zutse}, wrojg for the relation between {ca'a} and whatever (although {ca'a} seems to have a certain x1 bias as well).