[lojban] Re: Re[2]: tanru

[John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net>]

--- Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> pc:
> > First, {mutce} is "x1 is
> > extreme in property x2 in direction x3" so it
> is
> > unclear whether the elephant is extrme in
> eating
> > too much or in eating too little. 
> 
> Very much or very little, because {mutce}
> doesn't indicate
> excess, that would be {dukse}.

Right. In the context the excess seemed to be
intended -- and it is easier to say in English.
 
> I have never seen {mutce} used in the sense of
> "very little" 
> though, and if someone uses it with that sense
> it's very likely 
> they will be misunderstood. I don't know why
> the two senses 
> were conflated in the same word. I always use
> {toltce/tolmutce} 
> for "very little". What's the point of having
> one word (and an 
> extremely frequent one too) with two such
> opposite senses?

But, of course, {mutce} doesn't have two opposite
senses.  It may be that one direction has become
the default or is taken as being implicated in
most context (all unmarked?), but that still
doesn't make it the *meaning* of {mutce}.  The 
meaning is "x1 is at an extreme in property x2"
and so on.  Now, why we have that notion rather
than "very much" and "very little" is another
question, which I expect has something to do with
the occasional emergence of "semantic primes"
thinking in the construction of the vocabulary. 
Or, of course, comes from "very" (and the like in
other languages) which can extend in any
direction towards an extreme.
 
 
> >   Second, I am not clear just what
> > the *property* of eating is or how it can be
> > extreme.  One expects to see an event
> description
> > here in most cases. 
> 
> If you use an event in the x2 of mutce, what do
> you put in the x1?
> 
> All the degree words (mutce, milxe, dukse,
> traji) and the comparison
> words (dunli, frica, zmadu, mleca) require a
> property. 

Well, yes; if you take these words as
comparatives then our IE habits are going to make
what are compared (though not -- in many cases ,
including {mutce} -- with anything in particular)
adjectival, i.e. properties. Looking at the the
realities with a different set of filters, what
is involved is -- as noted -- quantities (of
qualities, to be sure, but that seems to be an
idiom in metaphysical analysis): what is extreme
is how much or how often he eats.  I would be
happy to use {lo ni citka} here as well.  There
may even be differences depending on which we
use.
As noted, I have some trouble thinking of eating
as a property and most especially as a proprty
that of itself can be comparative or superlative,
etc.: "He very eats" -- even "He extremely eats"
-- doesn't compute out to anything in any literal
way and as an idion makes most sense as being
about amounts of eating (in one reading or
another).
 

> > Still, I would feel safer with {poi dukse le
> nu
> > citka}, "who eats too much."
> 
> I would use {lo ka [ce'u] citka}, either with
> {mutce} or {dukse}.
> 
> If you put {le nu citka} in x2, how do you know
> what role the x1
> of mutce/dukse plays in that event?

Presumably as subject, just as it would with {ka}
-- or {ni} for that matter.    

And we have said nothing about the kinds of
extreme -- in eating say -- that *don't* deal
with quantities: eating chocolate-covered
grasshoppers, for example, or raw mokey brains
scooped out of the skull which is sliced off at
the table.  those would seem to call for
9indirect questions in the second what "is
extreme in what he eats" or even, "in that he
eats ..." (both of which look to be moving toward
events or at least propositions.  Maybe when BPFK
gerts around to vocabulary word like this need a
second look.