Re: [lojban] Re: About jboselkei reviews

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

However it came to pass, CLL10.19 (p. 243f) makes
it perfectly clear that {ka'e} is now exactly the
short version of {kakne}; the {cumki}-related
form is not even a possible interpretation. 
Further, {nu'o} and {pu'i} are only peripherally
relevant to "possible" as opposed to "capable." 
If I was involved in all this -- and I take your
word for that -- what ever happened to "is
necessary," which I surely would have insisted
upon along with "is possible."  Since enither of
these are in the present system, I take it that
this discussion was about something altogether
different -- capability, in fact -- and that the
discussion of possibility and necessity either
never took place (unlikely if I was involved) or
was lost in the subsequent development.  In any
case, the issue is what to do now and hopefully
the current revision work will get this all
corrected.

--- Bob LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org> wrote:

> John E Clifford wrote:
> > While I am not sure I agree with the
> arguments in
> > toto, I agree with at least a weak form of
> the
> > conclusion.  There is no need for a modal
> version
> > of {kakne}. 
> 
> Ah, but ka'e isn't a modal version of kakne. 
> At least it wasn't 
> intended to be.
> 
> The 4 modals of CAhA were things that you and I
> came up with together, 
> as being a way to resolve the potential inanity
> of "potential" 
> predicates.  Remembering that in theory an
> unmarked bridi could refer to 
> something that is only potentially true (I
> remember examples relating to 
> ducks being potential swimmers, and paper being
> potentially flammable, 
> in the timeless potential sense, even when the
> duck is nowhere near 
> water and the paper is drenched.)
> 
> With potential a valid form of unmarked bridi,
> we needed a way to 
> explicitly mark bridi as to potentiality and
> actuality.  You identified 
> 4 possibilities, to which I mnemomically
> assigned ca'a, ka'e, nu'o, and 
> pu'i.  Any resemblance of those modalities to
> the bridi from which their 
> cmavo were mnemonicized is not necessarily
> significant.  If the 
> keyphrase "innately capable of" is misleading
> people, please remember 
> that, as with all keyphrase cmavo definitions,
> the purpose of that 
> keyphrase was to have something unique but as
> short as possible to be 
> typed in LogFlash.  Just as with the keywords
> of the gismu, NONE of the 
> keyphrases were EVER intended to serve as the
> primary definitions of the 
> words (but then, we also expected that there
> would be a dictionary with 
> proper definitions within a year or so, and
> that never happened).  They 
> were, however, baselined along with the cmavo
> list, and the lack of a 
> real dictionary has led people to think of them
> as something other than 
> what they are supposed to be.
> 
> I'm hoping that one eventual outcome of the
> byfy work is that the 
> keyphrases either disappear completely, or that
> they are returned to 
> their intended mnemonic-of-meaning function,
> and cease to be definitional.
> 
>  > There further should be a modal version of
> {cumki}.  It would be nice 
> to convince
> > some higher power to shift {ka'e} in that way
> > (appearance notwithstanding). 
> 
> How would this cumki modal fit into the CAhA
> scheme you originally 
> proposed, or is it really that the keyphrase
> for ka'e is poorly chosen 
> and the pure potential modal should be closer
> to cumki in meaning than 
> to kakne?
> 
> lojbab