Subject: Re: [lojban] zi'o and modals

From: Richard Todd <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 04:50:10 -0500

John Cowan wrote: 
> Thus if mi klama zo'e, then mi klama zi'o. The converse need not
> be true, though.

I've slept on it, and still can not see this. Sometimes I think I get
it, but I have ideas that trip me up. I think I need a slightly longer
sentence to get across my point.

mi klama le zarci fu le mi karce

It's my (possibly misguided) view that this does not imply the truth of:

mi klama le zarci zi'o zi'o le mi karce

My thinking is that the first sentence, with implied {zo'e}, is talking
about an act of going. "I go to the store from _ by route _ in my
car." The _ places exist and are true, I just haven't bothered to say
them.

The second sentence reads to me like "I go to the store in my car.
{where I may start from and what my route may be do not exist in this
relationship}" It's a more general statement, and not about a single
act of going. This follows from the fact that no starting point, or
route exists in this relationship. It's simplified, as you say. To me,
this sentence implies that (for example) I never walk to the store; when
I go to the store it's by car.

Is that wrong? If so, then please tell me the difference in meaning
between the two sentences I gave. This is the only way I can think to
interpret them without making {zo'e} and {zi'o} equivalent.

Assuming that I am not way off, then I claim that neither implies the
other. A specific instance of {going to the store from {elided place}
by {elided route} by car} does not imply that {I go to the store by car}
is true as a simplified relationship between me, the store, and the
car. In other words, seeing me go there by car does not allow you to
say that car the way I go there in general.

The opposite would be true as well; the fact that {I go to the store by
car} does not imply that any statement about a particular trip {I go to
the store {elided starting point} {elided route} by car} is true.

This is difficult to think about in english! (the two sentences want to
read the same way to me anyway) 

Richard