Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: possible worlds

From: Rob Speer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Jun 2001 23:37:32 -0400

On Tue, Jun 19, 2001 at 10:56:14PM -0400, [email-masked] wrote:
> In a message dated 6/19/2001 8:10:08 PM Central Daylight Time, 
> [email-masked] writes:
> 
> 
> > how about this? "if i were rich i'd have a house" goes to
> > "fau le nu mi ricfu kei mi ponse lo zdani". i don't like using the 
> > UI cmavo to do this either, but i think there are substitutes.
> > 
> 
> Nice, but what does it have to do with possible worlds? (the answer "nothing" 
> is to its advantage) Is it clearly superior to {ganai mi ricfu gi mi ponse 
> lo zdani}. The latter is, I suppose uninterestingly true, the former appears 
> to be false or of uncertain -- and uncertainly obtainable -- truth value. 
> So, as assertions, the advantage seems to lie with {ganai} form. But if this 
> is something else than an assertion, it does seem to move over into the area 
> of UI: intentions, hopes, and the like.

Eep. No. Even I, the vehement supporter of more widespread use of logical
connectives, say that you absolutely can't translate that with {ganai} or
anything of the sort. Since the statement presupposes that you are not rich,
the {ganai mi ricfu} part is necessarily true.

I thank xorxes for pointing out the existence of {da'i}; it seems to fit the
bill. However, what if you are describing someone else hypothesizing a possible
world? Do you use {da'idai} and get into two murky areas at once?

And do you use {da'i} with an ordinary logical connective, like:

{ganai da'i mi ricfu gi mi ponse lo zdani} ?

I still don't find this as elegant as Loglan's {foi} and {fio}; those would be
similar to Lojban modals or tenses, which would have a more useful role in the
grammar of the sentence than a UI cmavo. However, at least this doesn't seem to
leave a gaping conceptual hole in the language, and I suppose it's the best we
can realistically achieve within the baseline.
-- 
Rob Speer