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Re: [lojban] Re: Duty, promice etc...



Jorge Llambías wrote:
> On 1/5/07, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
>>  As for the English, the words "promise" and "duty" are polysemous,
>> covering the making of the promise, what is promised and some
>> abstraction (don't we have a generic abstraction operator? Yes, {su'u})
>> which combines what is promised with the whole network of conditions
>> which making a promise calls into being.  This last is probably best
>> summed up in "the sate of being obligated to do whatever by virtue of a
>> promise".
> 
> 
> Could you give examples where the English "promise" means anything
> other than what is promised, {lo se nupre}? Can it really be used for the
> act of making a promise or for the state one is in after making a promise?

"Fred promised to give me a bicycle.  Fred broke his promise."

Fred did not break the bicycle; rather, he acted in a way that was
inconsistent with the state of having made a promise.