Subject: Re: [lojban] Introduction, and zutse/se sutse

From: And Rosta <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2001 16:22:36 +0000

>>> <[email-masked]> 11/12/01 11:31pm >>>
[email-masked] writes:
#> .. If broda can mean either ca'a broda or ka'e broda, then what can lo
#> broda mean? Is ca'a the default when lo is used? If not then I think the
#> usual translation of lo broda as "something(s) nonparticular that reallyis
#> broda" is rather misleading.  

I agree. The "really is" is there to contrast with nonveridicals' "is described
as", and would better be rephrased as "is claimed to be".

#Yes, for all the good it does (given the other problems so far), {lo broda} 
#really means "some things that really broda" -- at the time and in the world 
#being talked about. And that "world" makes it possible to talk about 
#unicorns using {lo pavyseljirna} and a perfectly straight face, if, for 
#example, you are talking about the Dark Forest about Hogwarts, just as {lo 
#stizu} applies to a chair that is never in actual history sat upon (burned 
#within instants of construction, say).  

I think your answer is misleading. If {ca'a} is sometimes glossed as 
"really is" (or some equivalent expression), then it is misleading to
gloss {lo broda} as "that which really is broda", since {lo broda}
can mean not only {lo ca'a broda} but also {lo ka'e broda}.

Further, it is possible to talk about {lo pavyseljirna} with a straight face
even outside Forbidden Forest contexts, so long as {lo pavyseljirna}
is interpreted as {lo ka'e pavyseljirna} and not as {lo ca'a pavyseljirna}.
lo'i ca'a pavyseljirna is the set of all unicorns in the real world, so is
empty, unless the locally real world is potterian or suchlike, while
lo'i ka'e pavyseljirna is the set of all unicorns in any of a contextually-
determined set of not-necessarily-real worlds, so is nonempty.

--And.