On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 11:34 PM, John E. Clifford <
kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> 2, There is in Lojban, as in many languages, a grammatical process called raising, by which a term in a subordinate position is brought into a higher clause. It may come to replace that subordinate clause or to fill another position in superordinate clause.
Lojban is full of predicates with sumti raising of the "in another
position" type. I don't think the replacement move works in Lojban as
a purely grammatical move. Using "tu'a ko'a" as short for "lo nu ko'a
co'e" is not replacement, because "ko'a" is not being raised there.
The case of "jai broda" is not replacement either, because "jai broda"
and "broda" are two different predicates.
> This is a sort of reverse of the process of eliding information that is repeated, when it is "obvious". So, in "I'm thinking of buying a car" we don't mention that it is me buying the car; that's obvious. But similarly, I might report those same thought as "I am thinking about a car", raising "a car" from the clause "that I buy a car" (in there at some level) to replace it.
But you are talking of a semantic move here, not a syntactic one,
right? "mi pensi lo karce" is not a version of "mi pensi tu'a lo
karce", the way "mi pensi tu'a lo karce" is just a compact way of
saying "mi pensi lo nu lo karce cu co'e".
> 5. [...] We need a particular apple which is the one I desire. [...]
What frustrates me a bit is that one day you say you understand my
point about events not solving this "problem" at all, and the next day
you are back again presenting events as a "solution".
If you have a problem with "mi djica lo plise", you should have the
exact same problem with "mi djica lo plisynuncti". If you can't want
apples without there being a particular one you want then you also
can't want apple-eatings without there being a particular one you
want. If you have no problem with wanting apple-eatings, you shouldn't
have a problem with wanting apples. Apple-eatings are just as subject
to the type-token distinction (or whatever you want to call it) as
apples are.
> Of course, this problem does not arise if you pick your apple before hand, as it were, in this story before going to the alternates.
And yet you don't need to pick your apple-eating before hand?
Apple-eatings can be just as distinguishable and individuated as
apples.
Suppose there are three apples on the table, and there are two
apple-eatings in the room. If I say I want an apple, you feel
compelled to ask me which one I'm talking about, why don't you feel
the same compulsion if I say I want an apple-eating?
mu'o mi'e xorxes