Subject: Re: [lojban] Train catching ut nunc

From: Invent Yourself <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 13:26:42 -0500 (EST)

On Wed, 14 Mar 2001 [email-masked] 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!