Subject: Re: [lojban] translation challenge: "If today is Monday..."

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 10:48:53 EDT

In a message dated 10/13/2001 11:58:20 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> Okay, I'll play the role of Socratic victim. What's wrong with:
> 
> ro da poi djedi zo'u da se cmene zo pavdei
> .ijo lo bavlamdei be da se cmene zo reldei/cibdei
> For all days X, if X is named Monday,
> then the successor-day of X is named Tuesday/Wednesday.
> 
> In other words, it seems to me that the oddity of these sentences reflects
> the fact that "today" and "tomorrow" are usually absolute in English, but
> here are being applied as relative terms. "Bavlamdei" is actually relative
> in Lojban, but is most often used (in a mildly malglico way) as absolute;
> here we get to use it in the "proper" way.
> 

Item 1> You didn't say "if" but "iff," which happens to be OK here, in fact, 
though not what was said/asked for.
Item 2>"today", "tomorrow", etc. are token reflexive, i.e., get their 
references dependent upon when the occurrence of the word in question is 
uttered. I don't see exactly what is meant here by "relative" (other than 
"token-reflexive") and "absolute." This use is perfectly normal in English 
and Lojban.