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On Mon, 4 Aug 2003, Jorge Llambías wrote:
>
> la xod cusku di'e
>
> > If we allow Mr. Bird to assume all the properties of every bird, one at a
> > time, what is the use of such a concept?
>
> We don't usually talk about irrelevant properties. When we talk about
> Xod, without further context, we don't usually mean 2-month-old-Xod.
> Similarly, when we talk of Mr Bird without context we will talk only
> of its most "characteristic" properties. But in a given context we
> will talk of the properties it has in that context. It is not
> characteristic of birds that I see them, but if I see a bird then I'm
> seeing Mr Bird. So {mi roroi ca'o viska lo'e cipni} "at all times I am
> seeing birds" is false, but {mi su'oroi viska lo'e cipni} "sometimes I
> see birds" is perfectly true.
>
> > I think that at one time, when lo'e was understood to mean "typical", mi
> > viska lo'e cipni meant I saw something that had 2 wings. Mr. Bird
> > sometimes has one wing; if I allow the lo'e cipni which I saw to be
> > interpreted by others as possibly having one wing, it seems rather a
> > useless concept.
>
> {mi viska lo'e cipni} without context, is a very vague statement.
> It can mean "I usually see birds", "I saw birds", "I am seeing a bird",
> etc. We can disambiguate using more precise words, or maybe context
> is enough, or maybe we don't need to be more precise. It is not a
> claim about a characteristic property of birds.
Something about the vagueness of this definition seems like le cipni would
be just as good. After all, le cipni can refer to generalized Mr. Bird
just as easily as it can refer to some specfic instances.
If we're going to go with Mr. Bird, we should accept that sometimes he has
one wing. Which means that the work of defining him is lost. If, however,
we declare that Mr. Bird has 2 and only 2 wings, we're moving him in the
direction of the lo'e'e cipni, which at this point seems more useful.
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