More Wind from the North

[cbmvax!uunet!OASIS.ICL.CO.UK!I.Alexander.bra0122]

To:
   Nick S. Nicholas

> Ivan on my NorWind thingy:
> Alternate insights welcome.

Excuse me butting in to this discussion.  I'm fairly new to "le lojbo",
and I've missed the start of the story, so I may be missing the point,

But.

Having now established my total lack of credentials, I'll now
stick my neck out, and offer you my alternate insights.

> la berbif. joi la sol. puki darlu lejei ri jikau ra vlimau le drata kei

ki'a

Neither this nor any of the alternatives given does anything for me.

My copy of logdata3.lex says that "ji" indicates a question,
and the truth value of a question seems moot, but then maybe
that's how the language works.

>From gismu.lst, "darlu" means
        argue for...against...(obj./event idea)
or from logdata.raw
        x1 argues for stand x2 against stand x3
which implies to me that "se darlu" should be a
predication ("du'u"), not a truth value, which I imagine as
being something I could e.g. know, but not a stand I could argue for.

And we seem to have dug ourselves a hole
by using "joi", and are struggling to get out of it.

I don't really understand "kau", but I don't believe it
affects the basic structure of the bridi, which seems
to me totally confused.

Why not use "fa'u", which gives:

        la berbif. fa'u la sol. puki darlu ledu'u leno'a vlimau le drata kei
        (Each) argues HE is stronger than the other.

If this works, you can do the same with the twelve months, although you might
want to stick "ro" on the front.

But the fact that you've used "jei" suggests that maybe that's not
quite what you were getting at.
If you want them to argue *about* a topic, then surely you're
better off using something based on "casnu", perhaps "darlu casnu"
or "casnu.ienai".  This gives us some new possibilities.
(You might as well go back to "joi" now.)

        la berbif. joi la sol. casnu.ienai lejei da vlimau le drata kei
        (They) dispute WHETHER one is stronger than the other.

Or perhaps you *were* talking about WHO is the stronger,
but wanted them to argue *about* it.

If, as the use of "ji" above suggest, it makes sense to make
an abstraction from a question, then

        da casnu.ienai le du'u ma vlimau le drata kei
        They dispute WHO is stronger than the other.

Or, another way of referring to the question:

        da casnu.ienai le preti po'u lu ma vlimau le drata li'u
        They dispute the question "Who is stronger than the other?"

But why is it even as complicated as this?

        da casnu.ienai lo vlimau be le drata
        They dispute the one who is stronger than the other
or
        da casnu.ienai de poi vlimau le drata
        They dispute x who-specifically-is stronger than the other

Maybe not.  This suggests that they know who is stronger,
and are arguing about some other aspect of him, such as
what he had for breakfast.
The point in question is the *identity* of he-who-is-stronger.
I tried various expressions to get at the concept of identity,
such as "ka du"

        da casnu.ienai leka du de poi vlimau le drata kei
        They dispute the property of being equal to one who is stronger
        than the other

which isn't very convincing, and "la'e"

        da casnu.ienai la'e lo vlimau be le drata
        They dispute the referent of "the one who is stronger than the other"

but I doubt "la'e" works that way.

But maybe this is where "kau" comes in.

        da casnu.ienai lokau vlimau be le drata
or
        da casnu.ienai dekau poi vlimau le drata

I think this last is my favourite - "da poi" mirrors what I'd
expect to see in the context of symbolic logic.

But wait a minute, shouldn't it be "kaunai"?  Is it "kau" because
they each think they know THEY are the stronger?  Or "kaunai"
because they haven't agreed it.  I think if they're arguing
about it, it's got to be "kaunai".  And so, finally:

        la berbif. joi la sol. puki casnu.ienai dakaunai poi vlimau le drata

co'omi'e .i,n .alegZANdr.

Iain Alexander,
ICL,
Bracknell,
U.K.