From a.rosta@ntlworld.com Fri Dec 07 14:16:04 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@ntlworld.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_1_2); 7 Dec 2001 22:16:06 -0000 Received: (qmail 84037 invoked from network); 7 Dec 2001 22:16:06 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.167) by m11.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 7 Dec 2001 22:16:06 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta06-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.46) by mta1.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 7 Dec 2001 22:16:04 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.255.42.227]) by mta06-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.23 201-229-121-123-20010418) with SMTP id <20011207221601.OVOK3849.mta06-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew> for ; Fri, 7 Dec 2001 22:16:01 +0000 To: "Lojban@Yahoogroups. Com" Subject: RE: [lojban] if Date: Fri, 7 Dec 2001 22:15:18 -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 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 In-Reply-To: <20011202210852.A1548@twcny.rr.com> From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=77248971 X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin [replying to list, because I can't see why this wd be sent as private reply] > From: Rob Speer [mailto:rob@twcny.rr.com] > Sent: 03 December 2001 02:09 > > On Sun, Dec 02, 2001 at 07:38:48PM -0000, And Rosta wrote: > > * mu'ei always works (tho can't do counterfactuality); it also has the > > advantage of being in ROI, the most convenient selmaho for the job. > > Wait a sec. Perhaps you mean something different by "counterfactuality", > because I believe that {mu'ei} is in fact the only thing (besides > {da'i}) which can express a counterfactual statement. It describes > things which do not necessarily happen in this universe but could or > would have happened in others. Oh right. Then yes, you were right; _mu'ei_ does what you say it does. I'm not sure about _da'i_, though; I'd have to see the examples. By 'counterfactuality' I meant 'counter to fact' -- something that didn't happen in this universe. "I wish that **you were here**", "**Had you been here**, I would...". > Perhaps what you're saying is that you can't use {mu'ei} to explicitly > say that it didn't happen in this universe, and that is why in Greg's > example I used {mu'ei le na'eca'a nu}. Ah, right you are. Good thinking. "na'e ca'a nu" isn't quite right, because it's not guaranteed to nonetheless denote a ka'e nu. What you want is "nu'o" = ka'e but not ca'a. One snag, though, is that I had envisaged mu'ei as being tcita for a du'u sumti rather than a nu sumti, in which case your clever idea wouldn't work. And changing it from du'u to nu seems to me to raise various logical problems that I won't go into here. > I can see how the word "counterfactual" might apply to either meaning. > Which just goes to show we need Lojban words for this. {datmu'efau}? OK. I'd have used "irrealis" for the meaning you were using. --And.