Re: [lojban] Response to Robin's "Essay on the future of Lojban"

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Sun, Apr 11, 2010 at 1:32 PM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
> That's nice to know, but then I suspect (as I noted) that our difference is in how 'lo broda' is interpreted and that brings up the universe of discourse (the range of bound variables).  Or perhaps it is what is the right way to express a non-specific desire: "I want a dog", say.

Discussing "I want a dog" will inevitably bring in the definition of
"djica", which according to the gi'uste requires an event in the x2,
and that will obscure the issue, which is not really about whether "lo
se djica" has to be an event or whether it can also be an object.

Consider instead the equally non-specific desire "I want to talk to
John". That's (hopefully uncontroversially) "mi djica lo nu mi tavla
la djan". Now "lo nu mi tavla la djan" could also refer to a
particular event of my talking to John, as in "lo nu mi tavla la djan
cu nau fasnu", or it could be used to quantify over events of my
talking to John, as in "ro lo nu mi tavla la djan cu cinri", in which
case any wanted but as yet unrealized event probably doesn't enter
into the picture. If I am currently talking to John and happy to be
doing so, then my current talking to John is something I do want and I
could say "mi djica lo nu mi tavla la djan" meaning that the current
event is not something that I'm doing against my will. That's an
unlikely interpretation without more context though, because if I say
that I want something, it is probably something I don't have at the
moment. Then I could also say "lo nu mi tavla la djan cu cafne", which
obviously cannot refer to any particular event of my talking to John,
because a particular single event cannot occur frequently, a
particular single event only occurs that once. I don't really see you
objecting to any of that.

You will probably want to say that what's good for "lo fasnu" is no
good for "lo gerku", but I don't, and I think that's where our
(seemingly unresolvable) difference is.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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