Subject: Re: possible worlds

From: "Adam Raizen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Jun 2001 20:23:19 -0000

la lojbab cusku di'e

> What is the relationship between the event and the sentence in the
English 
> phrase "In the event of blah, i will do blecch". There is clearly
some 
> relationship between the event and the rest of the sentence, but it
is 
> vague what that relationship is other than the event occurring is
necessary.
> 
> Thus fau associates an event with a bridi and says that its
occurrence is 
> in some way important to the truth of that bridi. Works rather like
the 
> English.

At least with the English, the idiom *does* mean at least that if the
event occurs, the main sentence also occurs. I don't think it's so
clear that the relationship in Lojban has something to do with the
event occurring being necessary to the main bridi. To me, "fau le nu
mi ricfu kei mi ponse lo zdani" means something like "I have a house
with my being rich being an event." With "va'o" and ilk, at least,
there are two places, and we can argue and define the relationship
between them as much as we want, but with "fau", there's just nothing
to work with.

I realize that the BAI cmavo were made before the parallelism with the
place structures of the gismu was formalized, but now "fau" seems to
be a rather useless word.

mu'o mi'e adam