Re: Talking about non-existant objects

[Chung-chieh Shan <ken@MATH.NTU.EDU.TW>]

> I haven't been reading my Lojban mail that closely recently, partly because
> there's been so much of it

Well now I know I'm not alone. :)

> I then further thought, why not solve the problem of not being able to talk
> about Elves and the such like by inventing a tense that would get us to the
> (imaginary) location in which they do exist.  Let's say this tense is "xa'o"
> (c.f. ka'o :-) then if I say:
>
>     lo ricre'a cu crino
>
> you (believing the non-existance of elves) would infer:
>
>     lo ricre'a xa'o crino

I like this proposal!

Maybe vedu'o works, or maybe we need a new modal/tense cmavo such as xa'o.
But this sounds most natural to me -- when I hear "elves are..." my mind
automatically enters a "hypothetical mode".  Of course, we should all be
grateful to the implicit tense system of Lojban.  Why hasn't anyone else
commented on this one?

This accepted-by-all-Lojbanists proposal xa'o ba add a new meaning to the
tense paper title "Imaginary Journeys". :)

----------
Chung-chieh (Ken) Shan   ken@cauchy.math.ntu.edu.tw
"Ay, fashion you may call it.  Go to, go to." -- Hamlet