From a.rosta@ntlworld.com Sat Feb 16 18:12:13 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@ntlworld.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_2); 17 Feb 2002 02:12:13 -0000 Received: (qmail 81395 invoked from network); 17 Feb 2002 02:12:13 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m8.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 17 Feb 2002 02:12:13 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta07-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.47) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 17 Feb 2002 02:12:12 -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 <20020217021211.QBOC22101.mta07-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew> for ; Sun, 17 Feb 2002 02:12:11 +0000 To: Subject: RE: [lojban] Subjunctives and worlds Date: Sun, 17 Feb 2002 02:11:30 -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 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.