[lojban] Re: Translating "even"

[John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com>]

Go to the parenthetical reading of 'surprising' if you don't like that word. John doesn't usually like that sort of cake, say.I do think that the notion of extreme is probably involvedi.e., John is very fussy about cakes, so what is surprising here is how good the cake was that it could overcome even that fastidiousness.  The 'she is not even awake' case is is trickier: what is surprising/unusual? Certainly not that she is asleep nor that she has no opinion on the matter (given that she is asleep).  It apppears to be that she would be thought to have an opinion when she is asleep, but that is all very circuitous.  That is, here we have the inner extreme, the minimum for concern and and she does not meet that.



----- Original Message ----
From: Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>
To: lojban-list@lojban.org
Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 2:05:40 PM
Subject: [lojban] Re: Translating "even"

On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 4:41 AM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Standard logic crap from fifty years ago now: John liked it.  Everyone else
> liked it.  It is sueprising that John liked it (John does not usually like
> things of this sort).

"Surprise" is often invoked when dealing with "even", but it is easily
defeasible. "The cake was so good that it was no surprise to anyone
that even John liked it." We can't really reexpress that by saying
that it is surprising that John liked it. Extreme cases are often the
most surprising, so "even" can indirectly indicate a surprising case
in that sense, but I don't think surprise is part of the intrinsic
meaning of "even". In the case of "She is not concerned. In fact, she
is not even awake." there need not be any surprise involved either.

mu'o mi'e xorxes


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