At 01:40 AM 5/29/03 +0100, And Rosta wrote:
Lojbab: > Slight caveat here: remember that Lojban predicates are "tenseless" Jimc, who restated in improved form what I said, makes a similar point. However, asking "Is this a taxi/taksi" is no different from asking "Are you a baby?", "Are you a university student?". Do answer that, you have to add tense, yielding, say: "Is this a taxi now?", "Are you a baby now?" Clearly you aren't a baby now; you're an ex-baby. But is a taxicab sans passenger a taksi now, or only an ex-taxi? So really I think my original point stands.
Nora likes to treat all Lojban predicates as being verblike. Thus your question is better expressed: Is a taxicab sans passenger "taxicabbing" now, and I don't think that it is. Most likely, it is "once and future taxicabbing" %^)
For your later question: you don't hail a taxi, you request the state of taxi-passengering.
lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org