From a.rosta@ntlworld.com Sat Feb 16 18:12:08 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@ntlworld.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_2); 17 Feb 2002 02:12:08 -0000 Received: (qmail 5604 invoked from network); 17 Feb 2002 02:12:08 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.172) by m12.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 17 Feb 2002 02:12:08 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta07-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.47) by mta2.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 17 Feb 2002 02:12:08 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.255.40.35]) by mta07-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.27 201-229-121-127-20010626) with SMTP id <20020217021206.QBND22101.mta07-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew> for ; Sun, 17 Feb 2002 02:12:06 +0000 To: Subject: RE: [lojban] Subjunctives and worlds Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 02:11:25 -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) X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=77248971 X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin Jorge: > la pycyn cusku di'e > > >{mu'ei} makes explicit reference to possible world in the object language. > >Possible world are a useful matalanguage device for explicating some notion > >in the object langauge, but, when introduced into the object language, they > >tend to create more problems than they solve (identifying worlds -- and > >things in them -- or (perhaps worse) distinguishing them (Prior's "The > >non-diversity fo the non-existent"), plotting connections, etc. etc.), not > >to > >mention the metaphysical freight they carry with them. > > I'm not sure the reference to possible worlds that {mu'ei} > makes necessarily has to be in the object language. It > appears in the metalanguage explaining how it works, but > there is no need for the speakers of the language to > think of it in terms of worlds anymore than we do when we > use the subjunctive. > > >Subjunctives-- and whatever else possible worlds are meant to do -- can be > >done perfectly well without possible worlds, as witness the fact that they > >are handled in all natural languages without once resorting to possible > >worlds. Jorge is right. The "possible worlds" gloss of mu'ei and ba'oi is simply an attempt to model in a formal and explicit way their meaning. I would do exactly the same for English conditional _could/would_. If you have a preferred way of modelling English conditional _could/would_, I expect it could be applied to mu'ei and ba'oi. > >(and has put {mu'ei} in a tense-related selma'o}. Though selmaho are defined more by grammar than by meaning. > >Lojban is, of course, totally inspecific about the nature of time, but, if > >we > >wanted to do a metalinguistic explication of tense structure, we would > >almost > >certainly use one with linear past and branching futures. ba'oi does that. --And.