[lojban] Re: NMS: glosses and YOU

[John E Clifford <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

--- MorphemeAddict@wmconnect.com wrote:

> In a message dated 3/28/2006 4:22:12 AM Central
> Standard Time, 
> ecartis@digitalkingdom.org writes:
> 
> 
> > Well, either Lojban doesn't do it well or
> Lojban doesn't do it just
> > like English. If the English way is truly
> prime and universal, then
> > Lojban doesn't do it well.
> > 
> > 
> > > > I don't know what the Spanish prime
> > > > corresponding
> > > > to YOU is either. There are four
> candidates:
> > > > "tú", "usted", "ustedes" and "vosotros",
> and
> > > > it's hard
> > > > to say that there are no conceptual
> differences
> > > > among
> > > > them.
> > 
> 
> The English glosses are not the primes. 
> They're the English reflections of 
> the primes.  
> One of the glosses for YOU is THOU, thus YOU
> should be understood as 
> singular: tú or usted.  I'd go with the meaning
> that these two share.

Yeah, we know.  The issue is which of the various
meanings of the English word -- even various
meanings in a given canonical frame -- is the one
(and there is supposed to be only one) which is
the prime.  The shared meaning of "tu" and
"usted," "you" and "thou" is something like
"adressee of this utterance," which looks to be
resolvable into other primes.


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