From lojbab@lojban.org Mon Feb 11 19:05:00 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_2); 12 Feb 2002 03:05:00 -0000 Received: (qmail 54912 invoked from network); 12 Feb 2002 03:04:59 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m9.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 12 Feb 2002 03:04:59 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO stmpy-4.cais.net) (205.252.14.74) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 12 Feb 2002 03:04:59 -0000 Received: from bob.lojban.org (209-8-89-107.dynamic.cais.com [209.8.89.107]) by stmpy-4.cais.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id g1C34vF80906 for ; Mon, 11 Feb 2002 22:04:57 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20020211042347.04e198c0@pop.cais.com> X-Sender: vir1036@pop.cais.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 04:41:47 -0500 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: UI for 'possible' (was: Re: [lojban] Bible translation style question) In-Reply-To: <71.1a3a7f32.29969aac@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=1120595 X-Yahoo-Profile: lojbab At 10:30 AM 2/9/02 -0500, pycyn@aol.com wrote: >In a message dated 2/8/2002 9:16:20 PM Central Standard Time, >jjllambias@hotmail.com writes: >>I don't think they can be used for tautology or contradiction. >>{je'u broda} is false, not true, when broda is false. >>{xukau broda} is the tautology. "Whether or nor broda" is true >>whether or not "broda" is true. Pity you can't say "Whetherever >>broda" in English. > >Well, you can say "whetherever" with just the meaning you want "whichever >of them". It's marked obsolete, but it looks worth reviving. For the >rest, we've obviously read the cmavo listing on {je'u} differently -- and >I have to admit that your reading makes more practical sense (except, >perhaps, for a logical language). {da'inai} clearly won't work for that >usage. But {xukau brode} is an indirect question, so not even close to a >tautology marker. I know that ther has been a lot of fiddling with {kau}, >but none of the moves would seem to justify this particular step. Expatiate. I believe (but heck it's been a lot of years) that the intent with je'u (whether this is consistent with anyone's usage) was to cover the equivalent of several English phrases that discursively refer to the truth of a sentence. These are usages like "truly", "clearly", "obviously" and some longer phrasings. I don't think they refer to a possible world, and hence are distinct from da'i. The closer equivalences I think would be to the evidential/discursive for assumption as well as ju'o for a more emotive indicator of truth, but je'u was intended for cases which were neither evidential nor emotive. It works, for example, as the discursive referral to truth of a proposition in a compound logical proposition. A conditional is of course true when both components are true, hence .ije would be clearest logically. But if for rhetorical reasons we use .inaja conditional, the discursive clarifies why the conditional is true, that we are not relying on the falseness of the antecedent to make the conditional true. je'unai has similar usage to discursively indicate the known falseness of a proposition where that falseness is incidental (again, the antecedent of a conditional). lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org