Subject: Re: `even' (Re: [lojban] Re: Tashunkekokipapi)

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2000 07:10:40 PDT

la xod cusku di'e

>I see the idea of "even" bearing closer to surprise than to contrast. It
>denotes a truth which is not obvious. It is obvious that the presence of
>a fearsome man is fearsome. It's not obvious that his horse would be
>fearsome too.

And yet things like "obviously even a child can understand it"
make sense. The idea is that the least likely candidate is
included, thus presupposing all other candidates are included
as well. It is not really necessary that the least likely
candidate be surprising, although it may be. It is a relative
surprise if you like, more surprising than the rest.

>As for the sentence "he is so fearsome that it is not surprising that even
>his horse brings fear to his enemies", it is cute but doesn't hide the
>fact that if you hadn't told us that his horse is fearsome we would not
>have 'normally' inferred it from the fact that he is fearsome.

I agree. I am saying that "even" by itself does not entail
surprise. It can be used for both surprising and non-surprising
situations.

co'o mi'e xorxes

________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com