Subject: Re: [lojban] A revised ce'u proposal involving si'o

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:14:17 EDT

In a message dated 8/24/2001 12:02:09 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> while {si'o} belongs with {nu} and {li'i} as concrete real world 
> #(whatever that may be) events.  
> 
> Not in actual usage, AFAICS. 
> 

there isn't enough actual usage to tell much and what little there is is 
unclear, open to any of the available interpretations. I think the 
"individual mental event" reading works best in most cases and not too badly 
in all.  

<Given its gloss and its membership in NU, there are two sensical
interpretations of si'o. One where it belongs with du'u and ka,
and one where it belongs with li'i. The intepretations are incompatible;
one must go. Your li'i reading can be done with 
"(nu) -appropriate-cognitive-predicate loi du'u". The du'u/ka
reading can be done with du'u/ka and a lorryload of ce'u.
I prefer to express the li'i reading using cog-pred loi du'u, and
be able to avoid the lorryload of ce'u.>

The lorryload of {ce'u} only arise with your (or whosever) convention, the 
{nu}+ appropriate-cognitive-predicate-{le du'u} assumes that {si'o} is 
propositional, which does not seem to be guaranteed (or, indeed, even 
suggested) by the glosses. And is there an appropriate predicate? Your 
{ka}-{du'u} reading can be done with better conventions about {ka} and {du'u} 
(and Lord knows there are enough offered for your choice.)

<.  To put {si'o} in with {ka} is either to 
#make all thought abstract and impersonal or all semantics concrete and 
#personal, neither very useful ideas in the long run (monism or solipsism).  

I don't think so. Why would "(nu) -appropriate-cognitive-predicate loi du'u"
do this any more than li'i-like si'o?>

If {si'o}, a person's ideas, are {ka}-like then they are functions of some 
sort, not events at all -- the events being at most function detectors, like 
observed colors are function detectors for say {ka ce'u xunre} and reality is 
thus all in the uniform metalanguage. On the other hand, if the proposal is 
to make {ka} and the like just like {si'o}, personal mental events, the all 
is reduced to the contents of an individual consciousness, my experiences, 
say. Since nu-appropriate-cognitive-predicate doesn't do anything here, it 
doesn't solve the issue.