Re: Events & sisku [was: le/lo]

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>Lojbab:
>> >Further, how come nu gets this definition, but not, say, prenu?
>> >Why don't we define "prenu" as "potential person" rather than
>> >"actual person"?
>>
>> prenu can mean "potential person".  Remember that potentiality/actuality
>> is an optional part of the tense system.  Without explicitly marking
>> tense, the same Lojban sentence can mean that something is flammable,
> something
>> is burning, and something is a cinder.
>
>I have this sinking feeling that we have had exactly the same
>discussion in the past, but I can't remember how it went, so
>have to go through it all over again.
>
>--More--
>Anyway the sense in which I am others are using "potential"
>is not "has not been but will be", but rather is "possibly
>never has been and never will be".

and also

Thanatos:>I grepped the reference grammar to no avail.  How does one speak of
>hypothetical entities?  That-which-doesn't-exist-but-for-discussion-is a
>whatever.  For example, "A duck walks into a bar" {le datka cu cadzu le
>kafybarja}.  I'm not talking about a real duck.  I'm not even calling a
>real object a duck.  Could {le datka} refer to my non-existant,
>hypothetical duck?  If so, then {le nu} could be a non-existant,
>hypothetical event, no?

See Chapter 10 section 19, on "potentiality" (for all you greppers %^)

nu'o can refer to a hypothetically possible event/thing/predication
without claiming that it will or will not actually occur.

da'i (as a discursive) hjas been used to explicitly indicate a hypothetical.

And in addtion of course "le" nu is an in-mid reference that does not
need to be a real event, or even an event at all - I could in a
suitably perverse context use "lenu" to refer to anything real or unreal.
But that is the weirdness of "le".

It is most certainly the case that "nu" does not claim occurance.  "fasnu"
is the predicate that claims actual or potential occurance, and takes a
"nu" predication as x1.  But in my mind, a nu predication need not even
be a potential event, though perhaps it has to be a conceivable event.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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