[lojban] Re: Again {lo}.

[Jorge Llambías <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

On 5/28/05, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Well, someone said that {lo gerku cu xagrai pendo
> lo remna} could not mean (I think they actually
> said "does not mean", but that amounts to the
> same thing in context) "Some dog is best friend
> to some man."

Not at all. Especially when followed by: "Or at least, not *necessarily*."

{lo gerku cu xagrai pendo lo remna} does not necessarily mean
the same as "at least one dog is best friend to at least one human",
but it could eventually mean that given the appropriate context.

> However, if it can mean that, there
> is no real argument here and I don't quite see
> what the problem is.  So far as I can tell, no
> one is claiming that it can't mean "The dog is
> man's best friend" too. 

Excellent.

 However, stressing that
> it is one rather than the other is just
> misleading. 

Nobody did that. All that was stressed is that it is not exclusively
the other.

 Perhaps it would be better to sit
> down and try to explain under what conditions it
> means one rather than the other -- and what
> exactly the difference is.

Well, without more context I would almost certainly interpret it in the
adage sense, just as I would interpret a tensless sentence out of
context in an atemporal sense. It requires a much stronger context to
interpret it as "some dog will be, two days from now and for a duration
of 37 minutes, best friend to some human." It could eventually mean 
that, but it's highly unlikely.

mu'o mi'e xorxes