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

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

--- Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/5/07, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> 
> > All of this suggests that we may want to rethink just how
> > the Lojban words {nupre, bilga} and maybe others are related
> > to the English.  {nupre} is fine for the speech act, perhaps,
> > but has to be used with care in translating other expressions
> > involving "promise."
> 
> Which English expressions involving the noun "promise" should
> not be translated by {lo se nupre} in Lojban?

As noted earlier, "make a promise" and probably "break a promise" and "keep a promise."  
all of these can be done (equivalently though not similarly) with {nupre} or even {lo se nupre}but
that doesn't mean that {lo se nupre} is good Lojban for "promise" -- the context has to change too
much.
  
> Which English expressions involving the noun "obligation" should
> not be translated by {lo se bilga} in Lojban?

"Has an obligation" at least, probably the other main cases (but "obligation" is different from
"promise" is a couple of ways: it is more general, need not involve something verbal (and so may
not have a definite beginning), can end in other ways that fulfillment or release and so on.

> > Incidentally, the use of "promise" for the thing promised is
> > becoming stranger and stranger to my ear: as it is claimed for
> > various contexts, it seems less and less plausible at home.
> > "I got what he promised me" means something very different
> > from "I got his promise to me," for example.
> 
> "What he promised me" can refer to some event, in which case
> it is a promise (= lo se nupre), but it can also refer to an object,
> in which case it is a kind of sumti raising for "what he promised

Of course (see earlier) That is, spelling it out in Lojban would be {tu'a ...}.

 
> "He did what he promised me"
> ko'a pu zukte lo se nupre be ko'a bei mi


But not "He did his promise"  That is"promise"is not treasted as what he promised, {le se nupre}.
 
> "I got what he promised me"
> mi pu cpacu lo poi'i ko'a nupre lo nu dunda ce'u mi
> mi pu cpacu da poi ko'a nupre lo nu dunda ke'a mi

And again, not "He got his promise" which means something very different.


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