From lee@piclab.com Tue Feb 12 10:37:13 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: lee@piclab.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_2); 12 Feb 2002 18:37:12 -0000 Received: (qmail 84542 invoked from network); 12 Feb 2002 18:37:12 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.167) by m10.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 12 Feb 2002 18:37:12 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO piclab.com) (216.121.191.70) by mta1.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 12 Feb 2002 18:37:12 -0000 Received: from localhost (lcrocker@localhost) by piclab.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id KAA32040 for ; Tue, 12 Feb 2002 10:37:09 -0800 X-Authentication-Warning: piclab.com: lcrocker owned process doing -bs Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 10:37:02 -0800 (PST) X-Sender: lcrocker@piclab.com To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] tautologies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Lee Daniel Crocker X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=1436760 X-Yahoo-Profile: bowtie95841 > > > How do you say in Lojban "I buy it whatever it costs"? > > How about: > > {vecnu ta mi seja'i da .oicu'i jdima} > > . If I had said {mi te vecnu ta ki'u...} instead of > > {vecnu ta mi ki'u...}, would that have implied that I was > > talking about the buyer's motivation? > > Well, more clearly so -- but I am not sure that the other wouldn't have > worked as well, given that the seller is not mentioned. In any case, {ja'i} > looks like a non-starter for this purpose, since no purose nor rule seems to > be involved. Further, {oicu'i} suggests indifference to whether there is a > price or not, not to what the price is. Ah, but there is a rule/requirement: the expression "I buy it no matter the cost" implies a "usual" rule that we buy things when the price is good, and that this particular purchase is an exception to that normal rule. I'm mentioning the rule explicitly rather than by implication. I might agree about {da.oicu'i} though; I'm still not sure. {da} is just a bound variable. It is usually translated as "there exists", but that doesn't mean it actually expresses existence as such. But I think you're right that there should be a better way to express indifference about the amount itself, although I can't think of it offhand ({ni jdima .oicu'i} doesn't seem quite right either). -- Lee Daniel Crocker "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC