"Only" and discursives

[cbmvax!uunet!pucc.princeton.edu!bob]

Richard Kennaway writes:

   >"Only" seems to me to be a three-place predicate masquerading as a
   >two-place one.  "X is only Y" means "X is Y and, perhaps contrary to
   >expectation, is not Z", where Z is left unstated.

   >The same applies to the near-synonyms "really", "essentially", "nothing
   >but", "basically", "at bottom", "simply", "purely", "no more than" etc.

Very true, I think.  But in lojban, `only' does not need to be a
gismu.  Instead, I think all the meanings of `only' are better
expressed using the

    .enai lo drata

and similar constructions that Nick S. Nicholas,
nsn@mullian.ee.mu.oz.au, suggested.

Expressing `only' in these manners looks to me like a good topic for
the text book.

The same notion partially applies to "really", "essentially", "nothing
but", "basically", "at bottom", "simply", "purely", "no more than"
etc. as Kennaway says.

However, some of these words are discursive attitudinals (Gakk!  When
do the attidutinals and other cmavo come on line on listserv so I
don't have to go to the other room to find a physical copy of the
list? :-( )

For example, "basically", and "at bottom" may be expressed
by the discursive:

    to'u    in short

Perhaps "really" is expressed by

    je'u    truthfully

or a combination of   je'u to'u

In many cases, "essentially" and "simply" may be expressed by

    sa'u    straight-forward discourse, simply speaking

Also, the leading preposition phrases in the preceding sentences may
be expressed:

    mu'a   For example,
    e'u    Perhaps

However, the phrase,    `In many cases,'    is not expressed directly
by any of the discursives.  The phrase has several meanings.  One is
to make a statement with a discursive meaning similar to

    ke'u   And again

A second meaning is to indicate that the statement is imprecise, as
with:

    lu'a   Loosely speaking

A third meaning is to limit the application of the predicate `may
be expressed by' and is part of the predicate.  In this case,
`In many cases'  is equivalent to `often' and we might translate the
English predication

        In many cases, .... may be expressed by ...
as
        ... often is a symbol/sign for ....

The lojban for this is

        cafne sinxa

converted into lujvo like this:

        cafnysinxa

        cafsni

Here are the words:

    cafne often    x1 is often/frequent in doing/being x2
                       compared to standard x3

    sinxa sign     x1 is a sign/symbol of x2 to x3 meaning/urging x4


Hmmm.....ua.ui.....perhaps some of the `only' expressions are
discursives, too.

For example, the usual interpretation of

    I only kissed Sandra on her nose.

is, I think,

    lu'anai             mi cinba la sandras leri nazbi
    Precisely speaking, I kissed Sandra     on her nose.

But I prefer the     .enai lo drata      and similar constructions
for the subtle variations on the use of `only'.

    Robert J. Chassell               bob@gnu.ai.mit.edu
    Rattlesnake Mountain Road        (413) 298-4725 or (617) 253-8568 or
    Stockbridge, MA 01262-0693 USA   (617) 876-3296 (for messages)