Re: [lojban] tautologies

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

la pycyn cusku di'e

>  But I don't yet see a reason for giving it to this usage, other
> than "that is how English (and Spanish?) does it." Please make your case.

I don't think English does it quite the same way, and Spanish even
less so.

> The equivalence (in
> more interesting ways -- grammatical transformation to start with) between
> {ijenai} and {ije naku} are fundamental to the language.

Let's put {da'au} (the proposed tautology operator) in
selma'o NA. Why is {ijenai} interestingly equivalent to {ije naku}
but {iju} is not interestingly equivalent to {ije da'auku}? It
seems to me to be exactly parallel.


> <I don't see what it is that remains the same for the case
> of {ta} but changes for {makau}.>
>
> Remember that {makau} is a cover for whatever happens to be true in the
> circumstances.

And {ta} is a cover for whatever you happen to be pointing at in
the circumstances.

> So, if ta costs fifty cents, {ta se jdima makau} is {ta se
> jdima -50cents} and if it is a dollar, then it is {- 1 dollar} and so on:

And if {ta} is {le ladru}, {ta se jdima makau} is {le ladru cu
se jdima makau}, and if it is {le nanba}, then it is {le nanba
cu se jdima makau}, and so on.

> You may say the same thing, but the sentence you utter changes with the
> circumstance for all that, so that it is always the true one.

And the same happens to the sentence without {makau}, except
it need not always be true.

> You have, in
> effect said "I declare the true sentence of the base form {ta se jdima 
> ---}."
>  What you say is always true, but it is a different thing on each 
> occasion.

Yes, the particularity of {kau} sentences is that they are always
true, but that they are a different thing on each occasion is not
particular to them.

> If {makau} accepts the {no da} answer (and it loks as theough you held the
> opposite view on this earlier -- not that I think that would commit you 
> now),

No, I think I mostly held that the {noda} answer was acceptable.
What we had a row about, if I recall correctly, was the {na'i}
answer.

> the clearly {ta se jdima no da} is ok, and so {no da} is an acceptable
> replacement, if need -- but note it is never needed, for {lo jdima be ta},
> and thus for {da}, if you think that that goes through.  This is a feasible
> position, but just barely.  I prefer saying that some things have a 0 price
> and some things an infinite one, both of which cannot be paid.

Ok, that's not really the point here. Let's consider an example
where the {noda} answer is a real possibility. Forget about
prices and consider destinations, or gifts, or whatever.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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