Subject: Re: Going walking (Re: [lojban] Lojbanizing my (nick)name)

From: Brook Conner <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 09 May 2000 13:08:48 -0400

Ivan A Derzhanski wrote:
> 
> Brook Conner wrote:
> > So the opening sentence goes (in English):
> >
> > Max the dog loves to go for walks.
> >
> > which I've translated as follows when maintaining word order:
> >
> > la maks. [...] gerku cu se pluka lo nu cadzu

la maks. poi gerku cu se pluka lo nu cadzu

> That means (or will, if you supply the necessary connective)
> `Max the dog likes walking'. 

A transliteration (hyphenated words correspond to a single word in the lojban)

The-thing-named "maks" that-is dog (end-x1) (swap-x1/x2) is-liked
some-of-the-things-which-really-are (event) walk-or-move-with-feet.

A bit less stilted:

The Max that-is a-dog is the-one-by-which is-liked some events-of walk.

> Walking includes moving inside
> one's house, or getting to whatever locations one is used to
> reaching on foot, but we don't normally think of those kinds
> of walking as going for walks.

Absolutely. Any of which (or all of which) could constitute an event in
the "nu" sense. Rereading the chapter on abstraction, "nu" includes
point-events, processes, activities, and states of being. Perhaps using
the "activity" abstraction "zu'o" would be more in line with what I
mean, or perhaps "point-event" "mu'e" would be better. Now that I think
of it, mu'e is probably most precisely the sense intended here.

> And we refer to walks (promenades) by words unrelated to the
> word(s) used for walking (locomotion by legs). Unless, that
> is, we happen to be speaking English.

A walk, as a noun, could mean many different things:

A specific place (typically long and narrow, a wide path) where one goes
to walk. Lojban's time/space tenses certainly suggest that "lo nu cadzu"
could in fact refer to a place (in the time-space sense). This sense of
the word "walk" would be a valid (partial) translation of the lojban "lo
nu cadzu".

The event of using your feet to move. Typically, but not necessarily,
this implies a walk with no particular destination in mind, as in "a
nice walk in the park". However, destinations can be included as well -
"The walk to work is quite nice". I think lojban's "lo nu cadzu" covers
this sense as well.

The process of walking - as in "a random walk can have different colors
of noise", in the scientific, chaos theory sense.

The activity of walking - as in "A walk is good for cardiovascular health"

So some valid (partial) English translations (I mean "partial" to say
that these don't encompass all of the possibilities of the lojban original):

Max the dog likes (time-space) places where you go to stroll (i.e., she
likes them even if impermanent) 

Max the dog likes to use her feet to move from place to place.

Max the dog likes events of her walking.

> (This sounds like something that has been discussed here before.)

I've found the abstraction cmavo both rich and complex, well-suited to
the kinds of discussions I enjoy having - debating the meaning of an art
house film, for example. I seem to recall that abstraction comes up periodically.

Brook