From rob@twcny.rr.com Thu May 24 20:24:41 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: rob@twcny.rr.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_1_3); 25 May 2001 03:24:40 -0000 Received: (qmail 38669 invoked from network); 25 May 2001 03:24:40 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 25 May 2001 03:24:40 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mailout2-0.nyroc.rr.com) (24.92.226.121) by mta3 with SMTP; 25 May 2001 03:24:40 -0000 Received: from mail1.twcny.rr.com (mail1-1 [24.92.226.139]) by mailout2-0.nyroc.rr.com (8.11.2/RoadRunner 1.03) with ESMTP id f4P3Mtd26764 for ; Thu, 24 May 2001 23:22:56 -0400 (EDT) Received: from riff ([24.95.175.101]) by mail1.twcny.rr.com (Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID# 0-59787U250000L250000S0V35) with ESMTP id com for ; Thu, 24 May 2001 23:22:56 -0400 Received: from rob by riff with local (Exim 3.22 #1 (Debian)) id 1538Ae-0000P6-00 for ; Thu, 24 May 2001 23:21:48 -0400 Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 23:21:48 -0400 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] Lessons (th' ol' if-then thang) Message-ID: <20010524232148.A1498@twcny.rr.com> Reply-To: rob@twcny.rr.com References: <89.726d44c.283ef94e@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.17i In-Reply-To: <89.726d44c.283ef94e@aol.com>; from pycyn@aol.com on Thu, May 24, 2001 at 07:54:54PM -0400 X-Is-It-Not-Nifty: www.sluggy.com From: Rob Speer On Thu, May 24, 2001 at 07:54:54PM -0400, pycyn@aol.com wrote: > It is true if the antecedent is false or if the > consequent is true, regardless of the other piece. This is what "if...then" sometimes means in English as well. In other cases "if...then" would be "go...gi". This shouldn't be a problem as long as Lojbanists are careful to use the right connective at the right time. So let's move on to the other problem which gets tied in with choosing connectives... how _do_ you express a hypothetical situation or a counterfactual statement, as in "If I had a million rupnu, I'd be rich?" IIRC, the problem is that in {ganai mi ca ponse pa megdo be le rupnu gi mi ricfu}, assuming the {mi ca ponse lo megdo be le rupnu} part is false, it reduces to a tautology. {jetnu iju mi ricfu}. Has anyone come up with a way to resolve this? -- Rob Speer