Re: {sorcu} definition

[Jorge LLambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>]

la bab cusku di'e

> 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.)

I agree with both statements.

> Consider `deposit': if you are talking about a deposit of something,
> you cannot create the predication without considering that the deposit
> is *in* something.

Etymologically, it probably makes more sense to think of it *on*
something, but anyway, I think that the primary meaning of deposit
(as I understand the word) is not very related to sorcu.

> Deposits are always in something.  The primary
> meaning of `reserves', `stores', and `supplies' also involves being in
> something.

For the primary meaning of `to store', which I suppose is related to
`to keep', I agree, but again, this is not what I understand as sorcu.

A `reserve', or `supply', I understand as an accumulation of some
material, presumably with some purpose or usefulness. Where it is
placed is of secondary importance, and the same supply or reserve
could be transferred from one place to another.

> 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.

I don't see why. A {te sepli} need not be a container.

> This is my main point: supplies only become supplies because they are
> set aside.

Agreed. But this setting aside is only incidentally related to the
container. They are set aside because we are calling them supplies
(or viceversa, rather.)

> 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.

I think that if I had a reserve of gold, momentarily located in a
bank's vault, and I acquire some more gold in the same amount,
I should be able to say that my reserve of gold is now worth twice as
much. Even though I still haven't put the new gold in the vault,
I can consider it as part of my reserve.

> A container is intrinsically a part of the predication for
> deposit/reserve/store/supply.

I'd say that it is intrinsically a part of sorcu, because the gi'uste
says it is. As for the English words, I'm not familiar with the use of
`store' as a noun in this sense, `deposit' is the one that comes closer
to a container, although it doesn't seem to refer to the x1 of sorcu,
(I'm not sure), and a container is not intrinsically a part of what
I understand by `reserve', and `supply'.

I would translate "A deposit is a place where supplies are stored" as:

lo srostu cu stuzi le nu le sorcu cu se ralte

> 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.

I agree with this, but I don't think you need a container
place to make sorcu a separate entity from the rest of the world.

[A container is not needed to define a boat's boundary]
> 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.

Exactly, not by a mere container.

> 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'.

I don't see how spisa can mean supply in this sense. What you're moving
to France is not a lump of gold.

> 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.

Yes, that's what you'd have to do with the current sorcu, but I don't
see why you shouldn't be allowed to change the container of a reserve.

> 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...

Yes, but this is not what I was refering to. You said that it would be
different if *it* was in a secure or insecure place, where *it* was
the same supply of gold, wherever it was.

> 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.

Yes. And you keep the control over the same it when changing its container.

>     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.

This is the whole point. I absolutely agree with the last paragraph.
My argument is that this concept is much less useful than one without
the container place (for which we already have vasru).


Jorge