Subject: Re: [lojban] cenba

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2001 20:45:05 EDT

In a message dated 8/12/2001 5:18:30 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> Do we really approve of this type of ambiguity? In the first case,
> {le mi creka} refers to a particular object, which changes in some
> property. In 2, what seems to change is what the referent of
> {le mi creka} is. In 1, {cenba} describes a relationship between
> an object and an event. In 2, unless I'm misunderstunding something,
> it would be a relationship between the words, it says that
> the words of x1 change referent in consonance with the change of
> 

When you put it that way, it sounds fishy. But I don't see that you have to 
put it that way: the first might be a metaphysical statement ("You can't step 
into the same river twice" kind of thing), the second may be about a magic 
shirt. So that is not the difference at hand. Nor is it general/specific 
since the first could be taken either way.
{cenba} and the like are always tricky, of course, because the referent is 
never the same, by the nature of the case. Can we come up with a case that 
does not involve such concepts or explain what happens in these concepts 
(whether or not it is somehow related to questions)?

[It is unfortunate that this discussion moved over into Lojban at this point 
-- or slightly before -- since it then became close to impossible to carry on 
without presupposing one or the other answer to the issue at hand, and thus 
neither resolving the issue nor making a genuinely meaningful discussion of 
it.]