From cowan@ccil.org Sun Aug 20 07:50:10 2000 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 28255 invoked from network); 20 Aug 2000 14:50:10 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by m1.onelist.org with QMQP; 20 Aug 2000 14:50:10 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO locke.ccil.org) (192.190.237.102) by mta1 with SMTP; 20 Aug 2000 14:50:09 -0000 Received: from localhost (cowan@localhost) by locke.ccil.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA29980; Sun, 20 Aug 2000 11:40:29 -0400 (EDT) Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2000 11:40:29 -0400 (EDT) To: "=?iso-8859-1?q?Alfred_W._Tueting_(T=FCting)?=" Cc: lojban@egroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Careful with noi! In-Reply-To: <8nogr9+ujbk@eGroups.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE X-eGroups-From: John Cowan From: John Cowan On Sun, 20 Aug 2000, Alfred W. Tueting (T=FCting) wrote: > With the funny result that /zi'o/ extinguishes a place while/by > sitting in it ;) *shrug* It was a last-minute kludge, not something worked into the language from the beginning, to meet certain vaguely formulated but cogent objections. > If I understand this right, it's a way of "creating" new brivla by > cutting off one or more places for relationships to "dock on". It=20 > would be marvellous having a method to create new places too ... ;) Yes, that is what the modals are for. > So, e.g. a /botpi zi'o/ doesn't mean at all that it contains nothing, > but only that the new word does not consider the container=20 > property *grammatically*. (Just as if talking about /ninmu/ without > having structural means to state to how many children=20 > they've given birth, or about /cinfo/ without a place for their > intestine's length.) On the other hand, zi'oing out a place is * > obvious* - hence the reader/listener realizes that this was done > *intentionally*! So, why e.g. using /botpi zi'o/ instead of just / > botpi/ or /botpi zo'e .../ *if there is no intention to express that > it isn't "bottling" anything* (and not even potentially)?! In dealing with a Gricean listener, that is plausible reasoning. However, a mechanical or naive listener will understand only projection; if a computer knows facts about who is a father, the request ma patfu zi'o will spew out a list of known fathers, whether or not their children's identities are known, whereas ma patfu [zo'e] will implicitly restrict attention to fathers of known children. Or at least that's one way to do it. --=20 John Cowan cowan@ccil.org C'est la` pourtant que se livre le sens du dire, de ce que, s'y conjuguant le nyania qui bruit des sexes en compagnie, il supplee a ce qu'entre eux, de rapport nyait pas. -- Jacques Lacan, "L'Etourdit"