Re: xo'e and noda

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

I believe that zo'e carries existential import - i.e., I cannot see that
you can use zo'e, with it possibly standing for "noda".  Nor can I see that
a claim that you are "tavla"ing can be true if there is no audience.  (You
might be bacru-ing (uttering), or ciska-ing (writing), or otherwise
expressing yourself, but tavla is as much dependent on there being a
talked-to, a subject, and a language, as it is on there being a talker.

Turning this around a different way, remember that "zo'e" is the implied
value when you leave a place unstated.  Would you accept the observative
"tavla" as having existential import as to there being a talker (much less
an audience); how about "fagri" for a fire.  If zo'e/place omission could
imply that the place did not have a value, people >would< have to explicitly
come up with a value that would be used most all of the time, and which
>would< have existential import.

It is Englsih (and many natural languages) that allow you to pretend that
something may not exist, when you leave it unstated.  In Lojban, the existence
of a place in the place structure means that there must be a value for that
sumti/argument within the predicate, or you need a different predicate.  I
personally prefer the lujvo method to devise such variant predicate meanings/
structures (and would even welcome conventions that made it clear that this
was being done, to the xo'e method.  But there has been enough strong
proponents of the idea that I am not going to oppose it being given a real
cmavo, and letting usage decide if it has real value. (That pc has apparently
also agreed to its acceptability also puts my mind at relative ease on its
suitability in a logical language.)

lojbab