[lojban] sumti intensionality [was: Mixing tenses on the beginners list]

[Ian Johnson <blindbravado@gmail.com>]

On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 7:31 PM, .iuROK. <yurock.tengo@gmail.com> wrote:

I think, {lo ca broda cu zmadu lo pu brode} does not say what you want to say.

The point of sumti is that they represent some referents. For simplicity, I will use sumti that have exactly one referent each. Usually a sumti reveals some information about its referent, so, using that information, the listener can correctly guess the referent of each sumti. For example, {lo blabi ku} says that the referent is white. That information, however, does not have a direct relation to the truth value of the main bridi, which the sumti is a part of. It does not matter how we refer, only what we refer to.

Let's consider an example: {lo pu verba ku ca ciska dei}. In {pu verba}, {pu} is a part of the selbri. {lo pu verba ku} says that the referent was a child. It does not say anything about the state the referent is at the time of the main bridi, which is now. Maybe he is still a child, maybe not. So, {lo pu verba ku ca ciska dei} does not say that a child writes the sentence. Actually, I wrote the sentence, so the writer is an adult; but some time ago he was a child, for sure.

There was a similar discussion to this on IRC today. I expressed, like you have here that I thought sumti were about referents, and do not have intrinsic structure that affects how they relate to the outer bridi. The one apparent counterexample I can see to this is {noi} (and {ne}, which is a shorthand for {noi} anyway). But that is not actually a counterexample, because the comment in a {noi} could be moved out of context, maintaining all referents of zo'e/co'e/etc., and the same meaning (with different emphasis) would ultimately be conveyed. {poi} (and {pe}), meanwhile, is about referents, not intrinsic structure.

The discussion was about how to express concepts with "as", such as "I like you as a friend" and "I respect you as a leader." Others expressed that this is "I like You-As-Friend", that is, the "as" lives in the sumti, similar to how it does in English. Some suggested a NOI for this; others suggested a brivla with place structure something like "x1 is x2 as considered in capacity x3 (ka)". All considered this to live at sumti level.

I expressed that I thought it lived at selbri level; in pseudo-English as before, "I like <where x2 is considered as a friend of x1> you". Some disagreed that this even made sense; others agreed that it made sense but was awkward, and I concede that the syntax I proposed for this purpose is actually rather cumbersome.

I claim that this is awkward not because it is conceptually awkward, but because we lack good mechanisms for transforming selbri into new selbri in ad hoc yet precise ways. Lojban was founded as a first order language, but with the introduction of ka it instantly became a second order language. In my view it should be more open to second order constructs like this.

mi'e la latro'a mu'o

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