Re: [lojban] Re: mi kakne lo bajra

[Michael Turniansky <mturniansky@gmail.com>]

  My head hurts.  Doesn't all this discussion belong on jboske, or
something?  In any case, Lindar, when you say "then what does {djica
lo nu bajra} mean? "Want to have a running."?"  I answer unequivocally
"Yes, that's PRECISELY what it means.  I want to have a running (with
presumably me in the x1 place)".  As far as Xorxes' contention
"because the gi'uste also says that "mi dunda lo plise" is wrong, and
I don't suppose you agree with that."
  No, that's precisely wrong, what it says is:
"x2 may be a specific object, a commodity (mass), an event, or a
property; pedantically, for objects/commodities, this is sumti-raising
from ownership of  the object/commodity "
  What that says is precisely that "mi dunda lo plise" is completely
100% RIGHT ("it may be an object or commodity"), but what that
actually _implies_  from a lofty, ivory tower linguistic POV that
theoreticians who don't use language to communicate, but simple to
make niggling points that make ordinary people's heads hurt (see
above), and prevents languages from ever being spoken, so that it's a
good thing the cavemen didn't have these linguistic academicians, or
we'd still be grunting around the fire, (I'm sorry. Where was I?) is
a transfer of the ownership property.  That's what "pedantically"
means.  "Pendantically" means "ordinary people can ignore this fine
distinction, because if you don't you'll never get any plise".

    (But of course, I've always 100% agreed with xorxes on the point
that there is absolutely no reason why the x2 of djica can't be an
object, just like the x2 of nitcu, and that the distinction between
THOSE words are arbitrary.)

                --gejyspa

On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 10:15 AM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>
> To: lojban@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Sun, October 31, 2010 7:17:05 AM
> Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: mi kakne lo bajra
>
> On Sun, Oct 31, 2010 at 12:56 AM, John E. Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>> But the event of wearing a hat is abstract in Lojban terminology
>
> I know, that's why I say Lojban terminology is so haywired sometimes.
>
> **I don't see the problem here; "abstract term" means one whose selbri (God I
> hate Lb terminology) is constructed using cmavo of a certain kind (or array of
> kinds).
>
>> (and semantics, since it is a type or some such notion)
>
> So when I say:
>
>     mi viska lo nu do dasni lo mapku
>
> is there some problem? Is that a different sense of "viska" from:
>
>     mi viska lo mapku
>
> **No, but it is looking at a different object, in this case allowing for
> delusions or or other sorts of misseeings.  If you're sure your perception there
> is veridical (love slipping that word in from time to time) then go ahead and
> raise.  You still may be wrong, of course, but that was always a risk. 'nu' is
> probably not the best choice for an abstractor here.
>
>>   I don't get your point: how do you make use of the possession of an object
>>(unless this is a very misleading way of saying you make use of the object).
>
> It's just as misleading/non-misleading as specifying that you want to
> possess it, or that you need to possess it, instead of just saying
> that you want it or need it. It is for the most part unnecessarily
> overprecise.
>
> **These are not misleading, they are just different (like the 'viska' case
> above).  In the case of 'pilno', which is about as close to a zero probability
> of problems of this sort as you can get, it is hard to figure out what the
> sentence with an event term as object might mean (without a lot of context: "He
> used his having a hammer as an excuse for going back to the workroom", say).
>  With 'djica' or 'netci' it is easier to see the point.
>
>>  The problem, to come back to it is, is whether the referent of a term is in
>>the domain of discourse or not,  In a lot of cases involving terms that
>>construct out of human intentions and emotions and cognitions, the answer is
>>that typically the term we put in that place is not, in fact referring to
>>something in the domain of discourse, and should be marked accordingly.
>
> So you claim, but it doesn't sound right to me. It seems to me that
> saying something about something is enough to put it in the domain of
> discourse.
>
> **And so it is, which is why we carefully don't say anything about stuff that is
> not there to be talked about, but rather bury them away in other worlds
> altogether.  Abstractors and (real) modals (including tenses) have the effect of
> removing reference from the present domain to another (or, as Frege insisted, of
> moving from present reference to present sense, which ultimately comes to the
> same thing).
>
>> To distinguish it from the occasional cases where it does so refer, if for
>>nothing else.  Lojban decided a long time ago to deal with this problem not by
>>marking certain places as being peculiar with respect to some rules but by using
>>certain term types that disallowed raising.  We have fairly frequently failed to
>>follow those plans
>>  with various weird results, but the plan is still a good one.
>
> The plan was never a coherent one, and the implementation was a total
> disaster, since many people are now convinced that "mi djica ta" for
> "I want that" is incorrect Lojban.
>
> **Well, it is true that the need to be careful in these places has been
> overstressed, with the results you report, that doesn't mean the plan was a bad
> one nor incoherent.  It may be that the choice of abstractors to use was wrong
> (I personally think it all comes down to propositions, since I am reasonably
> sure they exist and am much less sure about any of the others).  Of course, 'mi
> djica ta' and even 'mi djjica lo mapku' are perfectly fine Lojban, but they have
> consequences, one of which is the need to be able at least in principle to point
> out the object intended.  Clearly there is no problem with pointing out ta; you
> just did.  lo mapku may be somewhat harder but also may be possible (although a
> purist might insist that you use 'le' in that case).
>
>>  People who say 'mi djicu lo plise' should be prepared to answer, "Which one?"
>>and, if they cannot in principle even do that, then their claim is false.
>
> If I tell you I want an apple, I have to tell you which apple or else
> my claim is false, but if I tell you I want the having of apples, I
> don't need to tell you which having of apples and my claim is still
> true? That's not coherent.
>
> **Well, yes.  Because having an apple is a type not a token (well, it is a token
> of having, but that is another story).  Grammatically simple expressions are
> often logically (semantically) complex.  So "I want an apple" comes out as
> something like "I have a felt lack such that both if I were to have (or whatever
> predicate you want here) an apple, that lack would be filled and if that lack
> were to be filled, I would have an apple"  Now, if I know that there is an apple
> in this world that does for both these buried quantifiers, I can pop back.  If
> not, the quantifiers stay buried under at least two world shifts.
>
>
>
>
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