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Re: question



At 02:33 PM 7/27/99 -0400, Spigot wrote:
>From: Spigot <spigot@neuron.net>
>
>i'm trying to understand CAhA, its tricky.  the book sayson pg 243
>that "lojban bridi without tense markers may not necessarily refer
>to actual events: they may also refer to capabilities or potential
>events."
>
>if this is true, then a huge number of bridi that are said to be
>"obviously" false are not, like
>  lo nanmu cu ninmu
>or
>  lo'e glipre cu xabju le fi'ortu'a
>
>aren't these bridi true because men are in fact capable of being women,
>(they could prehaps get an operation), and the english are capable of
>typically living in Africa (perhaps they all move there).
>
>it seems that unless you specifically use <ca'a>, then your bridi
>is true in some sense...   is this right?

You can stretch potential tenses to such extremes, but the real examples
are things like "inflammable", or to refer to someone being a swimmer, even
though they are not actually in the water right now paddling.

lojbab
----
lojbab                     ***NOTE NEW ADDRESS***           lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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