[lojban] Re: Reasoning by analogy

[scope845hlang343jbo@icebubble.org]

Jacob Thomas Errington <jake@mail.jerrington.me> writes:

> Often times when translating from English to Lojban, it turns out that
> a conjunction such as "just like" winds up being the main claim of the
> Lojban. In this case, I'd translate as:

I've suspected that for a while, but had never seen it mentioned
anywhere, outright.  I'm glad to see it confirmed.  :) The only way I've
been able to translate sentences such as "I'm stronger than you." has
been to (like you suggest) express the comparison as the main selbri,
i.e., {mi do zmadu le ni tsali}.

    "You can learn to walk on your hands just like you learn to walk on
     your feet."

     lo xance ce'o da lo jamfu ce'o da cu simsa lo ka ka'e cilre fu da
     fi lo nu do cadzu fi ce'u

Would that be right?  I don't know how to pass multiple arguments into
an abstraction (or lambda expression) in Lojban... especially when they
occupy two different levels of (nested) abstraction.

> I'm not sure if trying to express it using .inaja is right. In
> principle, if someone knew how to walk on their hands and not on their
> feet, then the same analogy would also apply to them trying to learn
> to walk on their feet! So really, I think the main claim here is that
> hands and feet are similar, but in a very specific way.

Right, but most people who walk do so on their feet, and few people walk
on their hands.  So, there is an implication that it's the upright
walkers who will be learning to walk upside down (on their hands).

   do ka'e cilre cei broda fu da fe lo jai ta'i nu cadzu fi lo jamfu
   .ije da simsa de
   .ije seni'i bo broda fu de fe lo jai ta'i nu cadzu fi lo xance

That sort of expresses it, but it still seems kind of clumsy.  Use of
{ni'i} is perhaps more accurate than {.inaja}.

Also, there's no need to copy me, as I am already on the mailing list.

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