Re: [lojban] Re: semantic primes

[John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net>]

--- Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 3/20/06, John E Clifford
> <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > All the hypothetical cases "if someone were
> > looking toward the mountain, then the ball
> would
> > be on the tree's right" and so on.
> 
> That would be:
> 
>    le bolci cu drani le tricu lo catlu be le
> cmana

{pritu} not {drani}, i.e., wrong right.  But this
does not solve the problem since it is either
false or nonsense in the situation described:
there is not, ex hypothesi, such a thing as lo
catlu be le cmana.  Now, we can make {pritu3}
opaque, but that does not seem right, as that
would seem to require only abstractions here or
else it would be unmarked, which is inappropriate
for a logical language.  Actually, on second
thought, requiring an abstraction (an event or a
property perhaps) doesn't sound too bad,
certainly better than an unmarked opaque
(although Lojban still has a few, mainly from
mistaken place structures from subject raising).

> > There is
> > apparently no such person and yet the
> location is
> > clear.
> 
> Yes.
> 
> (As long as you assume that the someone is on
> the same side
> of the mountain as the ball and the tree, which
> would be a natural
> assumption. You can of course be more precise
> if need be, at the
> expense of more wordiness.)
> 

Yes