Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Some ideas/questions (long)

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 16:51:58 -0400

oskar2379 scripsit:

> Well, we _could_ pin it down, but with a cmavo, not another place in 
> the predicate (assuming lojban has a cmavo for 'by means of' 
> or 'using method...').

It does, but those cmavo are derived from gismu places!

> But there must be some pattern that that everything follows. 

I just don't believe that.

> You're right, mamta should be parent-female :)
> Maybe that will be the first thing I try to do...split gismu up. It 
> will take a while but I'm only 16 so I have a lot of time.

Fire away.

> But x4 seems to just serve to narrow it down, as if x1 *only* 
> responds this way under these circumstances. x1 on the other hand is 
> essential; its the agent (I'm not sure if this is the right term...I 
> have never taken a linguistics class).

x1 is the agent, indeed. But I am pointing out that what you think
essential and what you think inessential is a product of your worldview.
Quine shows that if you replace the denotation of all terms systematically
with their complements (so that the term "Oskar" which previously denoted
Oskar now means the-entire-universe-except-Oskar), everything works fine:
all true statements remain true and all false ones false.

More generally, a (first-order) theory cannot compel the domain of
interpretation: every first-order theory has an interpretation in which
all the terms refer solely to integers!

> But it gets even more confusing because x4 implies that x1's response 
> is habitual; x1 *habitually* reacts this way under these 
> circumstances.

Possibly but not necessarily. If you mean that, use the "habitual"
tense cmavo. For a counterexample, consider the case in which I (x1)
remain silent (x2) while being tickled (x3) when I am trying to hide
(x4). This is definitely not my habitual response to being tickled!

> 'the image of a cat'. The word 'of' usually implies association, as 
> if it were a *part* of the cat.

The "of" in this case is just part of the grammatical machinery of
English, sort of equivalent to Lojban "be". When I speak of "the
mother of John", I don't imply that John's mother is part of John.
Alternatively, you wind up saying that everything John stands in relation
to is part of John, which reduces the idea of "part" to a nullity.

-- 
John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan [email-masked]
To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are
no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that
they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. --The Hobbit

---

From: John Cowan <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 16:51:58 -0400

Fire away.