From thanatos@dim.com Wed Feb 13 13:04:12 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: thanatos@dim.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_2); 13 Feb 2002 21:04:12 -0000 Received: (qmail 24240 invoked from network); 13 Feb 2002 21:04:11 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m11.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 13 Feb 2002 21:04:11 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO supernova.dimensional.com) (206.124.0.11) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 13 Feb 2002 21:04:11 -0000 Received: from p05.3c04.pm.dimcom.net (p05.3c04.pm.dimcom.net [206.124.3.165]) by supernova.dimensional.com (8.11.4/8.11.4) with SMTP id g1DL44413263 for ; Wed, 13 Feb 2002 14:04:06 -0700 (MST) To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: [lojban-beginners] Non-logical AND in Tanru? Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 14:09:18 -0700 Message-ID: References: <123.bbbdb05.299be8a1@aol.com> In-Reply-To: <123.bbbdb05.299be8a1@aol.com> X-Mailer: Forte Agent 1.7/32.534 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable From: thanatos@dim.com X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=45881577 X-Yahoo-Profile: thandim2000 On Wed, 13 Feb 2002 11:04:49 EST, pycyn@aol.com wrote: >Some minor points: {finpe je mirli} is a single selbri, as far as the gram= mar=20 >is concerned, and {mi e do} is a single sumti. Here's where I think it's easy to confuse the text that represents a concept and the concept itself. "mi e do" as text doesn't refer to a single thing that is an argument of a predicate relation, although it may be used in the same place as text that does. In the grammar we call the structures that are used to specify sumti "sumti", even though the structures themselves are not sumti. Sumti are the things that are arguments to predicate relations, referred to by text. Similarly, the selbri is not the text used to specify the selbri, and a bridi isn't the text used to express the bridi. "mi e do" in "mi e do klama" doesn't refer to a sumti, it's a grammatical construction that's shorthand for another grammatical construction, namely "mi klama. ije do klama". There's the text, the meaning of that text, and the grammatical rules and word definitions that get you from one to the other. It's a problem that there's not much vocabulary to distinguish grammatical constructions from what they refer to. "le mlatu" isn't a sumti; it refers to sumti. Just like the word "dog" is a noun but a dog is not a noun. Of course, I may be the only one trying to use "sumti" to refer to the things referred to by the text and it's entirely my fault. But how else would one say that in "mi klama do" the relationship of "klama" is being claimed between the referents of "mi" and "do", if not with "'mi' and 'do' are sumti of 'klama'" or "It claims, 'I go to you'"? Excluding, of course, saying "'mi klama do' means 'mi klama do'". So in English how does one distinguish between the grammatical category of "sumti" and the things referred to by the same? --=20 EWC