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Re: [lojban] Lions and levels and the like
maikxlx wrote:
On Sun, Nov 20, 2011 at 7:20 AM, Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org> wrote:
>>>What we want out of {ka'e} is only the latter, and if it
can't guarantee that, then something else is needed IMHO.
You are saying that we WANT a cumki rather than a kakne meaning for use in
the contrast between the various CAhAs?
I do not necessarily* want to try to pry {ka'e} from {kakne} at this
point. It's a rather frequently used cmavo and I suspect "reforming"
it would be futile, though xorxes thinks otherwise. What I think
Lojban unequivocally needs are two new modal operators with a grammar
similar to CAhA but sensitive to scope. Lojban also needs a brivla
for modal necessity to complement {cumki}, which we probably already
have as {zilsa'u} or possibly {ziln'i'i}, I don't care which.
*Notice the modal operator usage in natural language.
I didn't comment at the time, needing to think about it some more, but I
am sure that this use of "not necessarily" is covered by some form of
the four or five causal cmavo in BAI, and the choice probably depends on
exactly what you mean by "not necessarily", since it isn't necessarily
(zo'o) a *logical* non-necessity.
The five in question are
ki'u
ni'i
mu'i
ri'a,
and ja'e (which does not act in parallel to the others - it was not part
of the original set, but we realized later that it somewhat overlapped
the others).
"necessarily" seems like a "therefore", which is the "se" form of the
first four and the unmodified ja'e. "Not necessarily" would then seem
to be a kind of negation of the therefore statement - not the nai form
which has been defined from the JCB era as "nevertheless", but
presumably the na form.
Whatever word you choose, it has to be used carefully. If you attach
the modal to the sumti "mi", you get
"I do not necessarily want to try to pry ka'e from kakne at this point
(but someone else might want to)."
Attached to the "at this point" would suggest that you might want to try
to do so at some other point, etc.
Both are plausible readings of what you said, but I can see a couple
more plausible readings as well (but I'd have to translate the rest of
the sentence in order to figure how to say it, and I'm lazy, and I'm not
sure that it is necessary to my point).
--
Bob LeChevalier lojbab@lojban.org www.lojban.org
President and Founder, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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