Subject: du'u in lieu of ka (was: Re: [lojban] Toward a {ce'u} record

From: And Rosta <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 21 Aug 2001 18:02:21 +0100

pc:
[email-masked] writes:
#
#> Or 3) Not so -- some {ce'u} may be implicit, and it is up to the
#> intelligence of the hearer/reader to figure out where they go.
# 
#Yes, that is a position too and, indeed, probably what we have been 
#mainly working with lo these many years. But it is hideously soft-line and 
#illogical, since it makes every {ka} phrase vague (or ambiguous, 
#depending on how hard-line you are). The problem is that glorking is 
#unreliable at best: witness pc and cowan on {le ka prami}. Of course, 
#people often are vague about just what they mean, but rarely, I think, 
#ambiguous in just this way.

I agree, but there is a remedy within the baseline, so long as zo'e
cannot be read as a ce'u (and if it can, then existing usage of
du'u is unspeakably ambiguous): And The Cowan has averred
that construing zo'e as ce'u is as heinous as construing it as
noda.

Since {du'u} doesn't guarantee the presence of a covert or overt
ce'u, using {du'u ... ce'u} instead of {ka ... (ce'u)} forces all ce'u
to be overt. Thus those of us who are rightly worried about the
horrible vagueness/ambiguity of allowing covert ce'u within
ka bridi can simply not use ka and use du'u instead.

--And.