Re: meaning of bridi without tense markers (was Re: question

[Robin Turner <robin@bilkent.edu.tr>]

la pityr. cusku di'e

> I would guess from the fact that tense markers are possible between "lo"
> and its selbri indicates that the meaning of "lo P" without any tense
> marker on P has the same tense connotations as "da cu P", i.e. the tense
> under which P is true is simply unspecified.
>
> So AFAICT, "lo P cu Q" means exactly the same as "lo Q cu P";
> both mean "some X, Tense1, Tense2: P(X, Tense1) & Q(X, Tense2)".

.ieru'e

In classical semantic terms, this holds:

lo gerku cu barda = at least one thing which is a dog, is big
lo barda cu gerku = at least one thing which is big, is a dog

But in terms of pragmatics (or cognitive semantics) there is a difference, at
least in English.  "Big dog" is not the intersection of the set of big things
and the set of dogs, but a dog which is big _by the standard of dogs_.
Similarly a small galaxy is not a small thing.  How Lojban handles this, I'm
not sure.  We can assume that

    lo gerku cu barda

is implicitly

    lo gerku cu barda fi lo'i gerku

but to read

    lo barda cu gerku

as

    lo barda be fi lo'i gerku cu gerku

takes a bit more imagination.

co'o mi'e robin.