Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: materials needed for resumption of ju'i lobypli

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 17:09:10 -0400

Robin Lee Powell scripsit:

> I would like to see someone write a discussion of mu'ei and all the
> issues related to it in Truly Moronic Idiot speech, please.

No points for me, but here it is in short words.

We use "mu'ei" to talk about what must be or could be true. To do this,
we speak of states of the world. There are a lot of states that the world
could have. I could be dead or not dead. You could be dead or not dead.
That is four states right there. As you can see, the count of states,
when each case has been thought of, will be huge. States like the one
in which 2 + 2 is 5 do not count, for we can't think clear thoughts
about them: we don't know what they mean.

If you add "mu'ei" with a PA in front to a claim, it tells me that your
claim is true in just PA states of the world. The PAs "no", "su'o", and
"ro" are the PAs that will be most used with "mu'ei". The word "romue'i"
is a lot like "must be", and "su'omu'ei" is a lot like "could be";
"nomu'ei" means "can't be".

You can say things like mu'ei lo du'u le trene cu spofu kei mi (jai)
lercu, which means "If the train breaks down, I would be late".

The "so'X" group works with "mu'ei" too, to mean things like "quite likely is"
down to "might possibly be".

-- 
John Cowan www.ccil.org/~cowan www.reutershealth.com [email-masked]
In might the Feanorians / that swore the unforgotten oath
brought war into Arvernien / with burning and with broken troth.
and Elwing from her fastness dim / then cast her in the waters wide,
but like a mew was swiftly borne, / uplifted o'er the roaring tide.
--the Earendillinwe