Subject: Re: UI for 'possible' (was: Re: [lojban] Bible translation style question)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2002 04:32:42 -0500

At 01:35 AM 2/3/02 +0200, Adam Raizen wrote:
>la .and. cusku di'e
> > Well, I can't quite remember whether sei is supposed to be
> > metalinguistic, or whether it is just a device for creating adverbials,
> > but if it is metalinguistic then I do object. Woldy is inaccessible
> > to me right now, so I can't check.
>
>The book does say that 'sei' is 'metalinguistic', but it doesn't fully
>explain what it means by that. 'po'o' and 'da'i' are included among
>the 'metalinguistic' indicators of UI,

Meaning that they have a component to their meaning that operates on a 
different metalinguistic level than the utterance they are found in.

>so I think that metalinguistic indicators can alter the truth value.

They can at least make the truth value meaningless.

>Otherwise, a large number of
>pontential sei-phrases become useless. 'sei cumki' would be useless,
>since the sentence claims the main bridi, and anything true is also
>possible.

It is operating at a different metalinguistic level. You can also say "sei 
jitfa" in which case you are presumably saying that the bridi is 
false. But there may be other things in the sentence that make it 
acceptable to have a false bridi, so "sei jitfa" could be used for example 
to set a counterfactual.

>Likewise, 'sei tolcu'i' would be useless, since it would
>claim the main bridi, and anything true is not impossible.

[If wishes were horses] sei tolcu'i se'u, [then beggars would ride].

>I think
>that whether the truth value is altered is a matter of what the
>sei-clause is, as it is with the rest of the indicators.
>
>Barring that, how *would* you do adverbs?

"fi'o broda ku" is how I would do it.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org