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

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 12:51:30 EST

In a message dated 11/13/2001 6:21:38 PM Central Standard Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> la pycyn cusku di'e
> 
> >{ka'e} is glossed in terms of potentiality "is
> >inherently capable of."
> 
> The problem with this gloss is that it seems to be biased
> towards the x1 of the relationship. {ka'e broda} is a
> relationship. Does it mean that x1 is inherently capable of
> entering the relationship, or does it mean that x1, x2, x3...
> are each inherently capable of entering the relationship?
> 
> I can understand a lujvo meaning "x1 is inherently capable
> of x2", maybe that's what {se jinzi} means, but it is more
> difficult to understand that gloss for a selbri modifier.
> 
> >Now obscure as that is in itself (is, to cite a
> >frequent example here, a person born blind, without optic nerves say,
> >inherently capable of seeing because he is human?)
> 
> Also, is a tree inherently capable of being seen by the blind?
> 
> Possibility makes more sense as a function for {ka'e}.
> Potentiality seems more like a property of a sumti than
> of a bridi.
> 

I agree that {ka'e} is biased toward the first position and that conversion 
have variable fortune around it (I think that trees are inherently capable of 
being seen and so by blind men, assuming that they are inherently capable of 
seeing, but other cases are much less clear). But {ka'e} is presumed to 
derive its meaning from {kakne} which clearly has just the bias mentioned, as 
opposed to {cumki} which is the base for "possible" (though the nearest cmavo 
to it is "probable," also covered, more regularly, by {la'a} -- there are 
times when I sorta see thinkit's point). So generally, events are inherently 
possible only in case some present event is capable in a {kakne} sense of 
evolving into them. This is one thing we mean by possible, but not the one 
that gets the most work out. Now, I would never propose violating the 
freeze, but if I were to, this would be a place where I would be tempted to, 
for good logical reasons: probably making {cu'o} parallel {ka'e} and get 
probability values out of {la'a} somehow.
In the meantime, if we want to talk about possible events we are left with 
"is possible" {le nu .... kei cumki} or something about a "present event" 
being inherently able to give rise to the one sought, both very periphrastic 
relative to English -- or even logic. Right for explaining the relation 
between {stizu} and {se zutse}, wrojg for the relation between {ca'a} and 
whatever (although {ca'a} seems to have a certain x1 bias as well).