Subject: Re: [lojban] ca'e

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2001 10:00:53 -0500

At 08:54 PM 03/03/2001 +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote:
>la pycyn cusku di'e
>
> >{ca'e} is an evidential, meaning "on the evidence of my definition" or
> >however you want to put it. In particular, it does not *claim* something
> >as a definition any more than {za'a} means that I am seeing it now.
>
>I'm never sure how to make any sense of {ca'e}. By definition
>of what? If I say:
>
> ca'e ro mlatu cu danlu
> By definition, every cat is an animal.
>
>Does that speak to the definition of {mlatu}? of {danlu}?
>of both? of neither? Is it a statement about cats and animals
>or about the words "mlatu" or "danlu"? Does the statement
>(in Lojban) have any meaning?

My intent was to have it be somewhat similar to ru'a for a postulate, but 
focussed more on semantically restricting or defining the terms in use. I 
could also imagine it to be used to "define" a "possible world". ru'a on 
the other hand, I would use for assumptions about the real world that I may 
or may not have evidence for, but want to dispense with the epistemological 
problems associated with the claim.

An example: Many libertarians claim that government has a monopoly on 
"coercion". This seems to hinge more on the definitions of "government" 
and on "coercion" and on "monopoly", though they seem to state it more as 
an assumption than as a definition. I would insist on ca'e because it 
points out that there is a semantics issue that is being shoved under the 
rug (the concepts in question are not part of the place structure of 
"government").

On the other hand, "I assume that my daughter is at home" because she said 
she would be and is seldom late, is clearly a case for ru'a and not ca'e.

lojbab

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org