Subject: RE: [lojban] Subjunctives and worlds

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 02:11:30 -0000

pc:
> -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.
>
> Well, the combination with {ro} and {su'o} -- and the potential for the 
> rest of PA -- suggests that *something* is being talked about, even if it 
> does not go into details about what it is. 

What is being talked about in the case of, say, cu'o (probability)?

> Our subjunctives use only termporal notions, which we already have, or 
> events, which we already have in Lojban. 

To say that English's 'subjunctives' -- which we're using as a term
for a semantically rather than grammatically-defined construction --
use only temporal notions is to take a hardline monosemy position
-- i.e. to deny polysemy of could/would. Furthermore, an important
ingredient in subjunctives if "if", and it is hard to see "if" as
a temporal notion.

--And.