Re: Dvorak (& Lojban)

[bob@MEGALITH.RATTLESNAKE.COM]

   Where English is less definitive, Lojbanists say, "English is less
   definitive!" Where Lojban is less definitive, Lojbanists say, "English
   overspecifies!" It's all so polemical. You sound like Esperantists. :)

I am not saying that.  I am saying that Lojban enables me to consider
some ideas that I don't readily find in English.

>     .i lo mi ke xekri bunre mlatu zu'a vu pu'o kalte le cmacu

   Looking at your above sentence, and before reading your English
   translation, I would simply have said, "Far to the left of me, a
   dark brown cat of mine is about to catch the mouse." That's not
   difficult to say and I could have sworn it conveyed all the
   *relevant* information.

Not difficult to say, but that is not what I understand the Lojban to
say, particularly not what I understand it to say before I filled in
the context.

My understanding of {pu'o} is that

  * it does not tell how far to the pastward of the event we
    referring; and

  * it does not tell when the event is taking place.

   (Chapter 10.10,  _The Complete Lojban Language_)

After reading my statement of context it is fair for you to think the
time is "now": `I only have one black/brown cat, I am looking out my
window on my left into the field'.  This context suggests {ca pu'o};
but before I specified such a context, a listener should figure I
may be referring to the past, present, or future; and the cat may be a
kitten crouching before a ball of yarn.

Indeed, one might wonder whether it is a Sapir-Whorfian effect of your
English that caused you to presume that {pu'o} implies {ca pu'o}; or
is it that regardless of language, we presume a context to be current
and local unless told otherwise?  (I can imagine strong practical
arguments for the latter.)

(Incidentally, insufficient specificity is why I left the designatee
of {lo} unspecified until I set the context; after setting the
context, the universe of discourse contained only one veridical {lo mi
ke xekri bunre mlatu}.  Needless to say, if by default we presume a
context to be current and local, then I could have presumed you knew
that our universe of discourse contained only one veridical cat.)

--

    Robert J. Chassell               bob@rattlesnake.com
    25 Rattlesnake Mountain Road     bob@ai.mit.edu
    Stockbridge, MA 01262-0693 USA   (413) 298-4725