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On Thu, Nov 28, 2002 at 02:21:27PM +0000, Jorge Llambias wrote:
> la djorden cusku di'e
> >I can give you a distinction between kakne and cumki:
> > cumki fa lenu mi zatfa'i la barda jamfu
> > kakne lenu mi zatfa'i la barda jamfu
> >The first is true, the latter false.
>
> Could you elaborate? How can it be possible that you find
> him if he is not capable of being found? Is it because
> with {kakne} the event has to be somehow up to you, or
> up to Big Foot, and neither of you is up to it, whereas
> with {cumki} it is left up to chance? The only thing
> {kakne} seems to add is that it can select one of the
> participants in the relationship and somehow peg the
> possibility to it. But {ka'e} can't do that.
The difference between this and cumki is that saying I'm "able" to
find him (or he's "able" to be found by me), is significantly
stronger. Truth in a single, farfetched, world which is not anomalous
but not accessable under stronger accessability relations is all
that cumki needs. I think the specific difference is that "able"
suggests that the event is more under the control of le kakne. It
suggests that, if I happen to get the desire, I could go find him
and would succeed, where cumki just suggests as said.
> >I think anything which is
> >true for kakne is true for cumki, but not the other way around.
>
> That may very well be the case, but the difference as far
> as I can see can only come from the fact that something
> which is cumki may be not related by kakne to any of its
> participants. But {ka'e} does not access any participant
> the way {kakne} does.
Right; it could be viewed that {ka'e} applies to all of the
participants. However, I think it is actually used to apply to a
sumti determined by context (generally the first one). The book
doesn't appear to require the interpretation which you are giving,
so we shouldn't be too hasty with it, since usage seems to support
the simpler view.
This would suggest
mi ka'e zatfa'i la barda jamfu ==
mi kakne lenu mi zatfa'i la barda jamfu
and
la barda jamfu ka'e se zatfa'i mi ==
la barda jamfu cu kakne lenu mi zatfa'i la barda jamfu
> >I
> >would think cumki corresponds to one kind of su'omu'ei, and kakne
> >to another kind of su'omu'ei (similarly, nibli corresponds to one
> >kind of romu'ei, and nitcu or bilga correspond to another kind of
> >romu'ei).
>
> Well, {nitcu} and {bilga} raise the same issues as {kakne},
> they involve some participant in particular, something that
> {romu'ei} cannot do.
>
> I can see the paraphrases:
>
> broda su'omu'ei ko'a <--> le nu broda cu cumki ko'a
> broda romu'ei ko'a <--> le nu broda cu sarcu ko'a
>
> even though they are probably not strict equivalences.
> But kakne/nitcu/bilga involve something else rather
> different.
This all depends on the definition of mu'ei. mu'ei doesn't have a
way to explain what notion of necessity it is being used with
current, and I think some sort of mechanism might be nice as it
would allow for saying things are
morally/logically/epistemologically/whatever necessity.
To my knowledge most modal logic systems simply deal with one at
a time, but Lojban has a bit more of a burden than a logical system
and as such I think we should be able to access whatever notions
of necessity are...necessary ;)
And of course we can do this with specific brivla, bilga, nitcu,
nibli, marde sarcu, etc are all types of [].
So: if mu'ei is flexible for various relations, then I'd accept
ka'e == su'omu'ei for one type of mu'ei. However, this would not
allow inferences that ka'e == cumki, which is a distinct types of
possibility, and as such it might be nice if we could find a way
(subscripts?) to explain what kind of [] or <> a given mu'ei
corresponds to.
mi mulno kasta'a vau .oiru'e zo'o .i mu'o
--
Jordan DeLong - fracture@hidden.email
lu zo'o loi censa bakni cu terzba le zaltapla poi xagrai li'u
sei la mark. tuen. cusku
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