From xod@sixgirls.org Wed Mar 14 10:50:27 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: xod@shiva.sixgirls.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_4); 14 Mar 2001 18:50:26 -0000 Received: (qmail 16746 invoked from network); 14 Mar 2001 18:50:26 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l8.egroups.com with QMQP; 14 Mar 2001 18:50:26 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO shiva.sixgirls.org) (206.252.141.232) by mta3 with SMTP; 14 Mar 2001 19:51:30 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by shiva.sixgirls.org (8.11.0/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f2EIQgS03001 for ; Wed, 14 Mar 2001 13:26:42 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 13:26:42 -0500 (EST) To: Subject: Re: [lojban] Train catching ut nunc In-Reply-To: <88.3adc588.27e0fc71@aol.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Invent Yourself On Wed, 14 Mar 2001 pycyn@aol.com wrote: > That completes the circle, since {pu'o} got into this discussion exactly to > deal with "come close to" in this sense when other notions seemed to be > getting away from the point. > So now we have three suggestions (have I missed any essentially different > ones?) for dealing with "I nearly caught the train" or "I barely caught the > train" and the like. Somebody suggested a je nai tense compound early on, and after we had our discussion on pu'o, I thought that might be the best way. Hence, something like pu ki mi pu'o je banai snada tu'a le trene I believe this is the way I would express it myself. > 1) A tanru with {jibni} or the like. Not {jibni snada} clearly, since -- > oh, the joys of a logical language! -- a {jibni snada} is still a {snada}. > So , {snada jibni} for "I almost made it" and converted form {jibni co snada > tu'a le trene} for the full expression of a failure to catch the train. > (Note that we still need some Griceing here,since "coming near" does not > entail not actually reaching, but sure implicates the hell out of it). > 2) {pu'o} and prayer. This works in isolation, given Gricean conventions, but > whenever some correlated event is mentioned, the implicature fades fast. On > the other hand, this form invites explanations of why you failed in exactly > those correlated events. Of course, if you are not inclined to give an > explanation,... > 3) Modified affirmatives or denials: {ja'a ru'e} and {na'e ru'e}. Aside from > not being sure about the grammaticality of these (though they seem to pass > both parsers) there is the problem that the "near miss" or "near hit" part is > lost truth functionally. My problem with this is that I can never remember if a ja'a ru'e is a success or a failure. ----- We do not like And if a cat those Rs and Ds, needed a hat? Who can't resist Free enterprise more subsidies. is there for that!