From a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com Sun Oct 28 11:10:49 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@dtn.ntl.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 28 Oct 2001 19:10:49 -0000 Received: (qmail 26421 invoked from network); 28 Oct 2001 19:10:47 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by 10.1.1.223 with QMQP; 28 Oct 2001 19:10:47 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta05-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.45) by mta2 with SMTP; 28 Oct 2001 19:10:47 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.255.41.139]) by mta05-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.00 201-229-121) with SMTP id <20011028191045.XOJY490.mta05-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew> for ; Sun, 28 Oct 2001 19:10:45 +0000 Reply-To: To: Subject: RE: [lojban] a construal of lo'e & le'e Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2001 19:09:58 -0000 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <20011028025343.A2376@twcny.rr.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin rob: > On Sun, Oct 28, 2001 at 12:28:19PM -0000, Adam Raizen wrote: > > la rab.spir. cusku di'e > > > > > I think the misuse of {da} to mean "something", without considering > > the > > > logical implications, is much more dangerous than using the wrong > > > article. I'd say about half the time someone says {da} they really > > mean > > > {zu'i}. > > > > "zu'i" implies "da", doesn't it? > > Well, as I understand it, the thing which is unique to the da-series is > that they refer to the same thing each time they are used. Hence it > seems very unnecessary to me when "da" appears and is used only once. That's an added bonus of da, not its essential property. Its essential property is that it is a variable. > But now that I think of it, I suppose that wouldn't make a difference > here. Whatever pronoun it is _is_ only used once, but the concept the > sentence is trying to express maps two different instances of the > pronoun to each human. > > Let's start discussing a sentence which is less likely to be false. How > do you say "Every human has a head" without meaning that it is the same > head for every human? > > {ro remna cu ponse pa stedu}? It would be disturbing if this didn't > work... but what stops {pa stedu} from referring to the same head for > every person it is had by? Nothing. {ro remna cu se stedu pa da} would be true if everybody had the same head. But it would also be true if everybody has a different head. So it is a true claim, albeit weaker than saying "Everyone has a different head". There is no uncumbersome way (that I know of) to say in Lojban "a different", as in "Everyone has a different head"; it's not hard to render in ordinary logic, but not succinctly. > {pa stedu cu stedu ro remna}? That *does* mean everyone has the same head. > {pazu'i stedu ro remna}? (My understanding of zu'i is that this is > equivalent to the previous one.) > {[some other prosumti] stedu ro remna}? > > Of course, {stedu ro remna} would work, except there's nowhere to put > the number, meaning that everyone has some number of heads. This would > be more significant in the example with eyes. --And.