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la and cusku di'e
For things like "Sherlock Holmes was a detective", "mi djica lo nu" -- we variously need to indicate whether the predication (is a detective, is a nu) holds in This World, or not in This World, or not necessarily in This World. It has been suggested by several people that ca'a, nu'o and ka'e serve this function: Sherlock Holmes nu'o is a detective; mi djica lo ka'e nu klama la brada plise.
Are fictional worlds really in the same league as possible worlds?
It seems to me that "Sherlock holmes was a detective" is very much
a {ca'a}-type statement. It applies in a fictional context, but
otherwise it is no different from "my uncle was a detective".
Possible-world statements are "Sherlock Holmes could have
been a detective" or "my uncle could have been a detective".
That's how I would interprtet the nu'o-statement. "This World"
does not contrast with fictional worlds but with hypothetical
worlds. In a fictional context "This World" is the fictional
context, and one can make hypotheticals based on it. "Sherlock
Holmes was a detective" can be used to mean "the character
named Sherlock Holmes had the role of a detective [in Conan
Doyle's books]", in which case I suppose we're using a kind of
metonymy.
It's not the same as saying "In some possible future (of Now) SH is a detective", "In most possible futures of Now, such and such would be the case". (Those are the meanings of cumki/lakne, su'o/so'e ba'oi.)
Right. But we don't really ever need to quantify over fictional
worlds, nor do we need a tense-type marker to tag fiction.
{mi djica lo nu ...} is a different story. In this case we are
dealing with the real world and hypotheticals based on it.
I don't see a problem with {mi djica lo cumki} or {mi djica
lo lakne}.
[lo'e/le du'u]
I'll check my archives to try to locate the messages where this was discussed. There were a few messages from me and xorxes probably worth putting on the wiki, not because they decided anything but because they spelt out all the issues and considerations pretty clearly.
I think it's these and follow-ups: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jboske/message/595 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/jboske/message/618 mu'o mi'e xorxes _________________________________________________________________Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail