Re: {sorcu} definition

["Robert J. Chassell" <bob@GRACKLE.STOCKBRIDGE.MA.US>]

   la bob mi spuda di'e

   >    How would you say in Lojban "take the reserve of gold from the safe
   >    to the bank"?
   >
   > ko muvdu lo sorcu be lo solji bei le snuryvasru be'o lo banxa
   >
   > Imperative: move that which is really a reserve or supply of gold
   > located in the secure-vessel to that which is really a bank.

   I was thinking of taking just the gold, without {le snuryvasru}.
   Something like: "She allways carries her reserve of gold with her,
   but when she's at home, she keeps it in the safe." If the x3 of
   sorcu is a container, then the thing that she carries with her,
   and the thing that she keeps in the safe are not the same sorcu.

That's right, the two entities are different.  But if you are thinking
just of the gold, why not use the other features of Lojban for talking
about a quantity of a substance?  You could say:

    ko'a bevri lo solji

    He/she/it/they carries/hauls/bears that which is really gold.

    bevri bev     bei  carry                'bear'
                x1 carries/hauls/bears cargo x2 to x3 from x4 over path x5

    solji     slo      gold
                x1 is a quantity of/contains/is made of gold (Au);


Or you could use {spisa}, as in:

    ko'a bevri lo spisa be lo solji
    She carries a piece of gold.

    spisa     spi      piece
                x1 [object/substance] is a
                piece/portion/lump/chunk/particle of x2 [substance]

Both these examples focus more on the substance itself, rather than on
the substance plus its non-physical context.

By "non-physical context", I mean, the reasons an entity is considered
a "store/deposit/supply/reserve" rather than just a substance.  You
don't say, "I have a supply or store of air." unless you have a reason
to be concerned about continual access to air.  Similarly with gold;
you don't worry about your reserve of it, unless you have a limited amount.

(Of course you may pretend to have unlimited reserves: the Bank of
England succeeded through much of the 19th century by following the
policy that "reserves are to be spent"---specifically, the reserves of
gold held in the vaults of the Bank of England were to be spent during
financial runs as if the quantity were unlimited.  The directors of
the Bank were known to have stiff upper lips.)

In a previous message, Bob and Jorge said:

       > One of the supplies she had collected for this little trip
       > was a container of orange juice.

       Ok. Her "supply-of-orange-juice" was inside a "container". Two
       different concepts.

       > Nope.  The supply-of-orange-juice that was in my mind when I
       > wrote that sentence included the concept of the container.

It seems to me that Jorge's concept of the "supply-of-orange-juice"
separately from the container, could be expressed this way:

    lo jisra be lo narjygrute

    that which really is juice of what is really orange-colored-fruit

    jisra              juice
                x1 is made of/contains/is a quantity of juice
                from-source/of-type x2 %% 2j 6

    narju naj          orange
                x1 is orange [color adjective] %% 1a 31

    grute rut          fruit
                x1 is a fruit [body-part] of species x2

On the other hand, when you are talking about a relationship that
involves all the English concepts adumbrated by:

    store/deposit/supply/reserve

you get something different from a substance itself.  I look at those
four English words and say to myself: "Reserve", that concept has to
involve more than just the substance, since a "reserve" is a
meaningful concept only in a context in which you are talking about
something `in reserve'; similarly, "supply" is meaningful only in a
context.

Bob and Jorge said:

   >     Does the reserve change when moved to another container?
   >
   > Yes, it certainly does!  If I had a supply of gold, I would think
   > about it very differently if it were located in a relatively insecure
                                  --
   > container compared to a secure vault.

   What is "it" in your sentence?

Let me rephrase this:

  If I had a supply of gold, I would think about the situation of my
  having some gold very differently if the gold were located in a
  relatively insecure compared to a secure vault.


   > The "store/deposit/supply/reserve" changes its
   > meaning to me depending on its container.  (Presumably, {se sorcu},
   > the "materials", i.e., the gold itself, would not change if moved.)

   Then you can't talk about moving the sorcu from one container
   to another.

Yes. exactly!  You cannot move a reserve, only what is in the reserve.

   What would you be moving? You have to transform a
   supply-of-gold-in-container-A into a supply-of-gold-in-container-B,
   they are two separate entities.

You would move the gold, which is the contents of the reserve in
container at a defined location.  The supply-in-container-A vanishes
(but not the gold, which ends up somewhere else, nor the container,
which remains, albeit empty.)  This happens to bank that run out of
gold.  The vaults become empty.

As for supply of orange juice in the bottle in the refrigerator, it
too vanishes, only to appear as the supply of orange juice in the
(leaky) container in the back pack.


    Robert J. Chassell               bob@gnu.ai.mit.edu
    Rattlesnake Mountain Road        bob@grackle.stockbridge.ma.us
    Stockbridge, MA 01262-0693 USA   (413) 298-4725

sorcu soc sro      store
                x1 is a store/deposit/supply/reserve of materials x2 in
                containment x3 at location x4 %% 3m 23