Re: [lojban] if, then (was: Lessons)

[Rob Speer <rob@twcny.rr.com>]

On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 03:21:44AM -0400, Invent Yourself wrote:
> On Thu, 24 May 2001, Rob Speer wrote:
> 
> > Okay, then we're essentially in agreement. ganai...gi and go...gi are
> > legitimate ways of saying if...then as long as you're not basing it on a
> > situation that is likely to be untrue.
> 
> "likely to be untrue?" Do you want your sentence to be able to hold up
> under both conditions; where the premise is true and where it's not true?
> Then use va'o. If you think the premise is always true, why cast it as a
> conditional?

Right, I said that wrong. ganai...gi and go...gi are useful if the antecedent
is a situation that has enough uncertainty whether it's true or false.
If the situation is definitely true, you're just stating something
rhetorically, and if the situation is definitely false (I shouldn't have said
'likely' here, but a very improbable situation like pigs flying, or wishes
being horses, would count), you're not giving any useful information.

Incidentally, I can't see how va'o would help. I would think that "broda va'o
lenu le xarju cu vofli" would have the same problem - since "le xarju cu vofli"
is false, the conditions for "broda" will never occur. This isn't the same as
"na broda" because broda could occur under some other conditions. So the
sentence conveys that broda might or might not happen sometime. This is the
same as not saying anything at all.

Even so, I don't think it was ever resolved what "va'o" means.
-- 
Rob Speer