Re: [lojban] conditional and hypotetical sentences

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

One of the downsides of being a logical language is that Logjam took over the 
connectives of logic quite uncritically and then tried to correct as it went 
along.  So, 'ganai,,,, gi...' means just what it says: "either not ,,, or ,,,'  
and even that is doubtful, since it does not require any relationship between 
the parts: "either ducks fly or the square root of two is rational" is perfectly 
sensible (and true) in logic land.  The various moves that have been tried to 
correct this and get away from truth functional "if" (all such conditional with 
a false antecedent are true, limiting its usefulness for counterfactuals), have 
a variety of objections.  The one presently most common (though none of these 
get used much, since this is tricky ground) is not a connective but a 
preposition.  It does the right thing, but in a very limited way (or else in a 
vague way; its scope appears to be a sentence but might extend indefinitely 
beyond).  From logic (but without the useless connectives), the ideal would seem 
to be drawn from subordinate proofs, where one goes off from the main line of a 
proof to get some result that can then be brought back into the main line of 
argument (reductio ad absurdum is the most familiar case).  Marking the 
beginning and end of such an alternative reality would allow the move to the 
world with the new defining condition to extend beyond a single sentence, as it 
often does in fact, but be clear about when one returns to the previous 
reality.  This is too much for the ordinary casual "if" which just wants a 
connective (and a recognition that usually a lot more is going one than just 
making a statement).




----- Original Message ----
From: Craig Daniel <craigbdaniel@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wed, December 8, 2010 9:34:43 AM
Subject: Re: [lojban] conditional and hypotetical sentences

2010/12/8 Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:
> On Wed, Dec 8, 2010 at 6:40 AM, Remo Dentato <rdentato@gmail.com> wrote:
>> After having read CLL 14 many times, I'm still very confused on Lojban
>> connectives.
>>
>> Specifically I don't get how I can consistenly translate hypotetical
>> and conditional sentences.
>
> The first thing you need to do is forget about associating "if" with
> connectives. In English, "if" is a subordinating conjunction, not a
> coordinating conjunction, so you should not expect it to be translated
> with a connective anyway. (There is a marginal use of "if" that can be
> sort of reproduced with a connective, but that's a marginal use of
> "if", not its main use, and you should not start with that.)

Right, the logical if and the idiomatic if are not the same. ganai...
gi... is very much the former, and is not a useful way to talk about
hypotheticals - or most other conditionals.

>> For example:
>> "If I had wings, I could fly"
>
>    va'o lo nu da'i mi se nalci kei mi kakne lo nu vofli

Some people favor "bai" over "va'o", but always with the understanding
that "bai" implies the having of wings to directly cause the flying
ability. AFAICT, the CLL doesn't have an answer here and both of those
are words originally intended for other uses that got repurposed
because there was a gaping hole that they seem to fit quite nicely.

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