Re: TECH.QUERY: zo bancu cu mo zo zmadu leka smuni

["(Logical Language Group)" <lojbab@GREBYN.COM>]

The question between zmadu and bancu is NOT the x3 place, which they share,
but the x4 place that they don't.  I am not sure that your version of the
statement using zmadu is as clear as the same statement using bancu.  The
x4 place that you did not supply may not be meaningful, even if there is
a way to define its value (certainly mathematicians/geometers can tell how
much more distant the tree is from you than the fence.  But the essential
claim is that the tree is on the other side of the fence and not that it is
more distant from you than the fence.  Hmm.  Indeed, the fence might be in a
different direction from you than the tree, and closer to you, and the s
statement involving zmadu would be true, but not the statement involving
bancu.  Thus bancu ==> zmadu but not necessarily vice versa.

So there are two criteria: relevance of the x4 place to the claim, and this
latter implication distinction, that would seem to differ between the two.
As to WHY we have both mleca and zmadu: because people make conceptual
distinctions in each direction.  If one is a gismu and the other is the
se conversion, then we have to pick one as being more basic or primitive, and
in this case we can clearly see usages where choosing one as more basic than
the other would affect the way we look at things (not to mention Zipfian
considerations).  Similarly, I think that bancu emphasizes a different
semantic aspect than zmadu even the places were identical.  You could use
semantic minimalism arguments to eliminate half of the gismu, if not more.
(do we need sister and brother as opposed to male/female sibling; similar
arguments for the other family relationships based on gender, and also in
the case of parents, on the distinction between blood-relationship and
parental relationship.

If you do not see a lot of difference between zmadu and bancu, you can of c
course try to use zmadu all of the time and bancu might go away.  But I
suspoect that you willfind a time when zmadu does not convey the sense that
you want - being on the other side of something - that bancu does, and the
fact that being on the other side implies that there is a property that can
be more-than for le bancu is not sufficiently specific.

lojbab