Re: whether (was Re: ni, jei, perfectionism)

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>> >No. That's not how Lojban ka abstractions work.
>--More--
>>
>> That is how I use them, and how they have been used since they started.
>
>It is helpful, I think, to distinguish between one's own usage and
>what is prescribed. Likewise, it is helpful to distinguish between
>usage history and what is prescribed. For example, usage history
>contains a lot of sumti-raising, but this runs contrary to the
>prescription.
>
>I was reporting the prescription.
>

I'm sorry, but you will have to quote me chapter and verse if you want me
to believe that the prescription says much of anything about this.  The
prescription as I read it says that ka bridi are elliptical, and that you can
explicitly fill in ce'u when appropriate to clarify.  There are places where
the place structure demands a ka abstraction with a single place specified
by ce'u, such as zmadu.  But approval has no such implicature, so one would
have trouble knwoing anything about the potential fill-in of ce'u without
added context.

Cowan has said that the normal default is to insert a ce'u in the first
unfilled place.  This is fine but there are times when normal defaults do
not apply, and in any case this doesn't say anything about what goes in the
other places - which could also be ce'u.  But I am not sure that the Book even
makes clear what he says he intends.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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