[YG Conlang Archives] > [jboske group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
la xod cusku di'e
> > {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.
It's different. If I say: {ca le purlamdei mi viska lo'e cipni}
"Yesterday, I saw birds", you can say {mi go'i}, "me too".
If I say {ca le purlamdei mi viska le cipni}, "yeterday, I saw
the bird", you would probably ask "which bird?". If you said
{mi go'i} I would suspect you didn't understand me, because
I doubt that we could both see the same bird the same day, given
the distance apart we are.
> 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.
ka'u lo'e cipni na'o se nalci reda
I know culturally that birds typically have two wings.
i ku'i lo'e cipni ka'e jmive gi'e se nalci pada
However, birds can live and have one wing.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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