Re: Fwd: [lojban] Subjunctive?

["Jorge Llambias" <jjllambias@hotmail.com>]

From: "Jorge Llambias" <jjllambias@hotmail.com>


la robin cusku di'e
>SwiftRain wrote:
> > Pycyn@aol.com wrote:

[actually pycyn was forwarding somebody else's post]

> > >
> > >      If I had a million pounds/dollars/kroner
> > >          then I'd be rich.
> >
> > is there something wrong with lu
> > "ganai mi ponse lo megdo rupnu gi mi ricfu"
> > li'u?
>
>While the discussion of counterfactuals has been interesting, I
>agree with this. {ganai ... gi} is a logical IF, not an English
>"if", and whether I really have a million squeebies, or the
>potential to aquire them, is not relevant.

What do you agree with? If you agree that there is nothing
wrong with that translation, you are contradicting yourself.

You say {ganai ... gi} is a logical IF, not an English "if",
and yet you agree that {ganai ... gi} is a good translation
of English "if"?

It is not a good translation in this case.

(1) ganai mi ponse lo megdo rupnu gi mi ricfu
    "Either I don't have a million dollars, or I am rich."

That is true.

(2) ganai mi ponse lo megdo rupnu gi mi pindi
    "Either I don't have a million dollars, or I am poor."

That is also true. I don't have a million dollars, so
no matter what I put as the second term the sentence
will be true.

But the English sentence: "If I had a million dollars then
I'd be rich" says more than (1). It is not a sentence about
how things are just for me in this world, as Lojban (1) and
(2) are.

The English sentence means something like: Anyone in this world
can truthfully say "either I don't have a million dollars or
I am rich". You need to make the sentence apply to everyone
in this world, or alternatively, apply just to myself in
many possible worlds, but you cannot translate it as just
a statement about me in this world. If it is just about
me in this world without counterfactuals it has very little
content.

>zo'o mi ponse lo megdo rupnu .i ku'i mi na ricfu ni'i lenu
>panononononono lo gugdrturki,e rupnu cu jbivamji re lo merko
>rupnu

Remember the dogs biting the men? You are saying that each of
a million Turkish lira has the value of each of two US$.

Obviously that is not what you mean, you want to talk about
one single amount of a million lira and one single amount
of two dollars, not a million single amounts of 1 lira and
two single 1 dollar amounts taken separately.
{lo rupnu be li paki'oki'o} or at least {lei paki'oki'o rupnu}

This is a very common mistake, just as talking of {re nanca}
for "two years", when what is meant is not two separate time
periods of one year, but one single two-year period.

I don't know whether it is worth pointing it out every time.
The problem is that Lojban treats numbers as quantifiers
in the purest logical way, individual or distributive, but
in everyday use we normally want the collective sense.

co'o mi'e xorxes


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