Re: forward from Greg Higley

This answered some of my questions in a post I sent before
I received it. So don't bother replying (on the redundancy
of ka).

> Date:          Thu, 16 Oct 1997 13:44:36 -0400
> Reply-to:      John Cowan <cowan@DRV.CBC.COM>
> From:          John Cowan <cowan@DRV.CBC.COM>
> Organization:  Lojban Peripheral
> Subject:       Re: forward from Greg Higley
> X-To:          Lojban List <lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu>
> To:            And Rosta <a.rosta@uclan.ac.uk>

> Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
> 
> > From the examples, {le ka
> > do xunre} is the property of your being red, but not necessarily any
> > particular instance {nu} of it at any particular time or place, so
> > there's no {ce'u} there anywhere.
> 
> True.  But I suggest (see below) that the wording "proposition that
> you are red" is better English, and that using "du'u" rather than
> "ka" in that case is more perspicuous Lojban.
> 
> JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS wrote:
> 
> > You can't have a {ka} without an explicit or implicit {ce'u}.
> > What would it mean, other than {nu}? If you don't agree that
> > a property must always be a property _of_ something, how
> > do you say "property" in Lojban?
> 
> I think that a zero-adic intension ("ka" with no "ce'u" explicit
> or implicit) is a "du'u".  The word "property" is too limited
> to capture the full meaning of "le ka ...", which means
> "proposition" when zero-adic, "property" when monadic, and
> "relation" when dy-or-more-adic.
> 
> The main use of "du'u" is
> to make it clear that no "ce'u" is present, and also to add
> the convenience x2 place (le se du'u = lu'e le du'u).
> 
> > Right. The default place for {ce'u} is the first open slot.
> 
> Probably usually.  It's not a rule.
> 
> > > Most
> > > lojbanists would use {ka ckule} and {ka se ckule} in very different
> > > ways.  But again, the rules say that they are the same -- otherwise
> > > we are 'favoring' the first sumti over the others.
> > >
> >  Yes, in a sense we are.
> 
> The rules say that both "ka ckule" and "ka se ckule" are incomplete,
> because they have ellipsized places.  These places must be filled in
> by extra-grammatical conventions.
> 
> 
> --
> John Cowan      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
>                         e'osai ko sarji la lojban
>