Re: TECH: QUERY re cmene

[John Cowan <cowan@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>]

la .and. rost. cusku di'e

> (2) From earlier discussion on this list I understand that
> cmene do have senses, the sense of a cmene being "the category
> of entity named ____". Is it the case, then, that cmene are
> always used with implicit or explicit quanitification? That
> is, should we understand _la lojban cu bangu_ to mean "some
> entity named 'Lojban' is a language", as opposed to "every
> entity named 'Lojban' is a language"?

Yes, "la lojban." is "su'o la lojban." == "at least one entity
named 'Lojban'".

I believe that the rest of your remarks evince a fundamental confusion,
which is perhaps not sufficiently clarified in our materials, between
names as an argument-class and names as a word-class.  The word-class called
"cmene" or "names" need no identifying flag; they are self-identifying
because they end with a consonant+pause, which is not possible for any
other word of the language.  It would be more correct to call them
"cmene valsi", or "name-words".  Although restricted grammatically,
name-words can be preceded by quite a few other words besides "la".

> If this is the case, I am confused as to why _la_ belongs
> to the same selmaho as _le_, _lo_, _loi_ etc.

Your assumption is in fact false:  "la", "lai", "la'i" belong to selma'o
LA, and "le", "lo", "lei", "loi", "le'i", "lo'i", "le'e", "lo'e" belong
to selma'o LE.  The difference between LA and LE, grammatically speaking,
is precisely that LA may precede one or more name-words, whereas LE may not.
In addition, LA may be used wherever LE is legal.

> It seems to me
> (whose understanding of Lojban is superficial) that the
> function of _la_ is to act as a word-class identifier

Not at all, as I explained above.  Semantically, LA cmavo always deliver
an argument:  "la .and." is equivalent to:

        le se cmene be zo .and.
        what-I-describe-as-the-thing named-by the-word "And"

which with appropriate adjustments will explain all uses of LA cmavo.

> (i.e.
> to show that the word is not a gismu, lehavla or lujvo) and
> that semantically _la lojban_ is the equivalent of an
> unquantified gismu brivla. If I was rightly informed about
> the meaning of cmene, then - it seems to me (same caveat)
> that the following ought to be possible:
>
>     mi cu la .and.   "I am an-entity-named-And

        mi cu se cmene zo .and.
        I am-named-by the-word "And"

>     le la .and. cu prenu "What is hereby described as
>                           an-entity-named-And is a person"

        le se cmene zo .and. cu prenu

or just

        la .and. cu prenu

>     loi la .and. cu prenu "The mass-of entities-named-And
>                            is a person"

        lai .and. cu prenu
        the-mass-of-those-named "And" is-a-person

> Am I right - is that what _loi_ is?

Yes.

> (3) In both English & Lojban, some referents of names seem
> sort of quantifiable - e.g. _Lojban_ (or la fraktur.) or
> _homosapiens_. We can say of writing on a piece of paper
> _This is Lojban_ or _There is some Lojban on this piece
> of paper_, which seems different from _Lojban has 3
> word classes_ or the like. I think that in the case of
> English what is happening is that in _some Lojban_,
> _Lojban_ has been converted into a common noun such that
> its sense is the referent of the name _Lojban_ and is
> thereby quantifiable.

Since "la lojban." delivers an argument, it may be coerced into a predicate
by the general method of prefixing "me", which coerces any argument
into a predicate.  We can then say:

        da poi me la lojban. cu se ciska fi le pelji
        there-exists-something which is-Lojban written-on the paper

> My impression is that in Lojban one might well say
> _mi cu ciska la lojban_ meaning "some Lojban".

You might, since names are given at the whim of the namer, but
"mi ciska le me la lojban." would be more communicative to me.

> So the point here is that this is another way in which
> cmene could be quantified, and this way conflicts with
> the way outlined under (2).

By using "le me la lojban." you get to quantify twice, which solves the problem.

> I would appreciate enlightenment on these points.

"I can >tell< you, but to >enlighten< you is probably beyond my poor
powers of discussion."  --Norman Spinrad

--
John Cowan      cowan@snark.thyrsus.com         ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan
                        e'osai ko sarji la lojban.