Re: [Ladekwa] Re: Ser and estar

I do recall that Ladekwa had a copula "ser"-style verb, though it would rarely be necessary. As for an "estar"-style verb, I'm sure something could easily enough be coined, and it would simplify Spanish-Ladekwa translation (when and if such occurs).

 

As for "wissen" versus "kennen", the distinction being made is the same as between "saber" and "conocer" in Spanish. (For that matter, Lojban also makes a distinction between "djuno" and "se slabu".) When I studied epistemology, we would make a distinction between "knowledge that" and "knowledge of". But Ladekwa already makes this very distinction as well, between "ko" and "gofwama", so I don't have any problem there.

 

I personally think that Ladekwa should err on the side of too many distinctions rather than too few. After all, the speaker will always know which of the two things distinguished that he or she means. But every now and then the translation software will not always be able to distinguish an ambiguous term properly, and must substitute a word that deliberately leaves the distinction unspecified. I seem to recall from one of the earlier versions of the monograph that Nasendi had a word for unspecified number for this kind of situation.

 

Geoff

 

On 30/11/05, The Shadow <grose12@hidden.email> wrote:

A similar distinction between different kinds of knowledge is found
in several European languages also, and I'm sure all over the world.

In German:

koennen:  "to know by personal acquaintance"
wissen:   "to know by learning or authority"

Given that one *can* break it down as I just did in English, no
doubt one can in the interlingua also.  But this seems a wee bit
English-parochial.  Even English used to make this distinction with
different words.

As for ser and estar, I don't think it will come up too often,
simply because the interlingua doesn't use "to be" very much.  You
would say, "I located-at work", "I emotional-state-verb well", "I
Australian-state", "I work-as a data analyst", and so on.

I imagine sentences like the headline you mention will require
special handling in the programs that parse Spanish for translation
to the interlingua.  It'll have to be translated across much like
you did in the English version.

For what it's worth, though, Lexical Semantics does come up with an
equivalent for "ser", though I forget what it is at the moment.
(Search on "copula" in the monograph.)  I can't think of an
equivalent for "estar" off the top of my head.  You'd need some sort
of state-verb meaning, "having the quality of".  There may be one
already, I just don't recall it offhand.

--- In Ladekwa@yahoogroups.com, Geoff Hacker < geoff.hacker@g...>
wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> Ladekwa--and, I presume, its successor Latejami--has shown itself
to be
> proficient at making all the lexical distinctions that English-
speakers are
> accustomed to making. It also makes many grammatical distinctions
that
> non-English speakers are accustomed to making, such as degrees of
> politeness, topicalisation or voice changes. But what about some
important
> non-English lexical distinctions? I am thinking here of the Spanish
> distinction between ser and estar, both of which would translate
into
> English as "to be", yet which make what to the Spanish-speakers is
an
> important distinction between essence and accident. You "estar" at
work
> today, or you "estar" well at the moment, but you "ser" an
Australian or you
> "ser" a data analyst. In most cases, this distinction could
probably be
> ignored in the interlingua, because "ser" and "estar" have
customary usages
> that can be identified from context, i.e. translate with "ser"
when talking
> about nationality or occupation but "estar" when talking about
location,
> condition or emotion--but the distinction could not be ignored in
every
> case. An editorial in La Nacion once had the headline "Somos o
estamos
> indeciso?", or "Are we indecisive, or merely undecided?" How would
the
> interlingua make this kind of distinction when it had to be made?
>
> Geoff
>






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