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

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 02:11:50

la ritcrd cusku di'e

>mi viska le botpi be fo noda
>(I see a bottle with unspecified contents, material, and no cap)

{lo botpi be fo noda} is no more a botpi than {lo patfu be no da}
is a patfu.

That's why {botpi} does not mean the same as English "bottle".
English "bottle" would be a one place predicate, but {botpi}
is a (very messy) four-place relationship.

{ko'a patfu no da} means the same as {ko'a na patfu da}.
You would not call ko'a a patfu in that case.

{ko'a botpi fo no da} means {ko'a na botpi fo da}.
So we should not call ko'a a botpi if it doesn't botpi.

>I chose to say outright there is no cap, but you could
>put that in {zo'e}'s corner as well depending on how important it is to
>this sentence.

If there is no cap, there is no botpi relationship, so there is
no botpi, no se botpi and no te botpi either. For the relationship
to hold there have to be four things, whether they are important
or not.

>Why on earth is a {zi'o} version different or better?

Because {botpi fo zi'o} is a new relationship, that relates only
three objects. If those three are present then you do have
lo botpi be fo zi'o, lo se botpi be fo zi'o and lo te botpi
be fo zi'o.

>Apparently, a
>bottle filled with soda and topped with a shiny propeller cap can be
>reduced to the {zi'o} version without becoming false.

Yes, you can talk about a relationship that exists between the
other two objects. Not the botpi relationship, one with only two
arguments.

>I think I finally understand that {zi'o} means:
> ``this place could or could not have a truthful value, but I'm not
>going to make an assertion about that either way''

More or less, yes.

>Why let {zi'o} and {zo'e} overlap this way? If {zo'e} claims there is a
>truthful value, {zi'o} should be saying that there is no truthful
>value. That is a clear distinction, without ambiguity.

Then by using {botpi be fo zi'o} you would be talking about the
4-way realtionship botpi, not about the new 3-way one.

>Then the challenge is coming up for useful way to use {zi'o}, since the
>sentences come out kind of zen-like:

zi'o is in my list of "thou shalt not use", did I mention that
already? :)

>mi viska le botpi be zi'o bei le blaci bei zi'o
>(I see a glass bottle which cannot contain anything--including
>nothing!--and which is inherently capless) { maybe it's solid glass
>that's bottle-shaped? }.

Or maybe it's a Klein bottle.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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