Re: {sorcu} definition

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

When we create Lojban words, we should try to define the arguments
that are intrinsic to the predication.  (BTW, I think that Lojbab et
al.  have done a wonderful job.)  It may be that English speakers
often elide some arguments.

Consider `deposit': if you are talking about a deposit of something,
you cannot create the predication without considering that the deposit
is *in* something.  Deposits are always in something.  The primary
meaning of `reserves', `stores', and `supplies' also involves being in
something.  You don't think of the entities to which you are refering
as supplies or stores unless you separate them from other entities,
which means you have to have some sort of container.  Even an army
reserve, sitting in an open field, is in a container, the sociological
container that makes it a unit.  (No container, no unit.  No unit, no
army, just a rabble.)

This is my main point: supplies only become supplies because they are
set aside.  This setting aside requires a boundary; the stores are
those things inside the boundary.  There can be {lo solji} but that is
not a deposit or reserve unless it is a set aside quantity.  A
container is intrinsically a part of the predication for
deposit/reserve/store/supply.  In conversations, you often can elide
the container place.  Nonetheless, without separating the entities to
which you are referring from the rest of the world, you don't have a
supply or deposit.

`Deposit/reserve/store/supply' is a different kind of predication than
`boat'.  It is true that you cannot think about a boat without
separating your image of the boat from the rest of the universe.  A
boat is in an intrinsic, implicit container, the boundary that
separates the boat from the rest of the universe.

But a boat is perceived as a whole; it has a stable boundary.  Except
in special cirsumstances, you do not need to be aware of what contains
the boat.  On the other hand, a deposit or store is an entity defined
ad hoc that consists of other entities that are only considered a
deposit or reserve because they are all put in the same category by a
temporary and motivated operation.  You can ignore a boat's instrinsic
container because the expression `that is a boat' involves different
cognitive operations than the expression `that is a deposit'.


The English word `supply' is used in different ways.  I am not trying
to claim that English words have only one meaning!  The meaning we are
talking about in relation to {sorcu} is the meaning of `supply' that
is associated with `deposit/reserve/store/supply'.  This meaning is
different from the meaning of `supply' in a sentence such as `move the
supply of gold from England to France'.  The second meaning of
`supply' is close to the Lojban gismu {spisa},
`piece/portion/lump/chunk/particle'.  If I were translating the
English sentence to Lojban, I might translate `supply' using {spisa},
if not {lo}.  Or I might recast the sentence, and talk about the first
{lo se sorcu}, from the first {sorcu} to the second {sorcu}, i.e.,
moving the contents of the first deposit or reserve to the second.


    >   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.

    Do you admit that with your definition, sorcu can't be used to
    translate "supply of gold" as used in your first phrasing? ...

In Lojban, I might write something such as:

    ganai mi ponse lo sorcu be lo solji be lo snurystuzi .onai
    lo na'e snurystuzi ..
    If I had a supply of gold in a secure place or
    in an insecure place...

Or I might leave the container place unspecified, without even using
{zo'e}, and simply write:

    ganai mi ponse lo sorcu be lo solji gi mi jinvi ...
    If I possessed a deposit of  gold, I would think ...

This translates the English just fine.

    .... It is not true that "supply" has always an intrinsic
    container associated in English, because your initial phrasing
    makes perfect sense. There is something funny with the
    adumbration.

No, this is not a case of my using a secondary meaning for `supply'.
The phrase, "If I had a supply of gold ..." only makes sense because
the reader understands that the gold itself is separated in some way
from the rest of the gold in the world, so that I have some sort of
control over it.

Suppose I had said "If I had a supply of gold, I would give it to the
Logical Language Group."  I could only carry out this wish if I had
control over some gold.  Of course, as a practical matter, if I were
to express such a sentence in Lojban, I expect I would elide both the
container and location places of {sorcu}, and leave them unspecified,
as I did in the English.  Such a sentence does not take away the
notion of container; it leaves it unsaid because that place is not
relevant to the conversation.

    there is no way in Lojban to transfer the supply-of-gold from one
    container to another.

Correct.  In Lojban, it is evident, if you remember the place
structures, that a deposit is linked to its location and container.
(Of course, the location or container may be sociological or
electronic and not physical.)  You can change the amount in a deposit
or reserve, but not its container or location.

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