Re: how to say

[Rick Morneau <mnu@INEL.GOV>]

Colin Fine writes:
>
> 'Looking through a window' is NOT the same as 'looking through a
> telescope'. Consider 'looking through a momentary gap between
> passers-by'.
>
I would suggest that the stereotypical interpretation of "looking
through a window" includes the concepts in both the "telescope" and
"gap" examples. What you must decide is whether Lojban covers this
particular combined semantic domain. If not, then you must either
attach it to the closest existing domain or create a new one.

In this case, I chose the instrumental interpretation because a
window is a man-made artifact with a particular "instrumental"
function. I imagine that Lojban is sufficiently robust to implement
it either way, depending on what the speaker wishes to emphasize. As
for the "gap" example, since a "gap" is clearly a channel, you
probably want to translate "looking through" to indicate the channel
concept. In some circumstances, however, you may want to translate it
as instrumental to indicate that you are using the gap as an
"instrument" or "tool" to accomplish an end. If you want to translate
"I'm looking through my files", you would need a third concept.

Regards,

Rick

--
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=  Rick Morneau            Idaho National Engineering Laboratory  =
*  mnu@inel.gov            Idaho Falls, Idaho 83415, USA          *
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