Re: cenba

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

>>Imagin that I am listening to the radio.  I hear many different speakers.
>>I do not belive this is adequately expressed by the statement
>>
>>       mi cenba leka makau se tirna ce'u
>>
>>because this implies that it is me that is doing the varying and not the
>>se tirna.
>
>Well, you are varying from being {lo tirna be da} to being {lo tirna be de
>poi na du da}. That is certainly a change.

It is a change, but it is not the case that we think of us being that which
changes.  And in fact, we are not changing, but rather something that forms
a relation to us.  It is that THING that is changing, and not really a property
of that thing or of the relationship of the thing to us.  It just seems wrong
by the common sense meaning of cenba.  The thing in x1 should be the thing
that actually changes, and then if it is a total replacement, I am not sure
that cenba is right either as opposed to binxo.

>>So what goes in the x2 if you say
>>        le se tirna cu cenba
> >        le se tirna cu cenba le ka ce'u voksa makau
>        The thing heard changes in whose voice it is.

This seems to beg the question.  If I had phrased it more specifically, it
would have seemed redundant.

      le voksa poi se tirna cu cenba ma

>>?  The whole concept seems backwards at that point.
>
>It wasn't me who gave that place structure to cenba, but it doesn't
>seem backwards to me. There are lots os gismu that take a
>property of x1 in x2.


Of course there are, and it seems "obvious that this one should as well.  But
still we get intomenatal gyrations in attempting to cast a ka property,
especially one that is open-slotted in the way you prefer.

The place structures were supposed to be common sense, and I think they are,
for the most partm until you start trying to apply some of them.

>>This leads me to suspect that any discussion of the semantics of cenba must
>>ALLOW those to work, but need not be exclusive to that kind of formulation.
>
>Well, what is the alternative? Something like:
>
>        le ka le pixra cu blanu cu cenba le ka le pixra cu blanu
>        The property of the picture being blue changes in the
>        property of the picture being blue.
>
>?
>That doesn't make much sense to me.

Well, in English, we can say that the quality of the picture being blue
changes in the amount/degree/shade/saturation/hue - changes in the ni abstract
or in the several alternate varieties of "place structure" for color that have
been proposed.  In other cases, what is changing is another place of the
actual place structure.

Hmm. This may be what forces me to reconcile to the status quo - though most
reluctantly (the status quo as you have described it, that is).

le voksa be makau
is a change in whose voice it is which as a change seems like a total
replacement, whereas

la djan klama makau
is a change in where John goes, which is not an inherent change to John
(I should use parallel examples, though...

le klama be makau
is a change to the destination, but is not a change to who goes.  In one case
the relationship bewtween the places we think of as being inalienable, whereas
in the other case, we cannot imagine a speaker changing without the voice
also changing.  Arrgh, My mind is racing ahead of itself.  Let us try that
again:

In one casethe relationship bewtween the places we think of as being
inalienable - the voice does not change without the voice-owner changing and
 vice versa, whereas in the other case, we can easily imagine a different
destination for the same go-er, or a different go-er to a particular destination
since the rtelationship is not inalienable.

I'm not sure, but I think this inalienability, which is not directly marked in
Lojban (except when we use po'e, and even there I am not sure it is always
clear) that makes a formulation of cenba in the way you are doing it seem
odd.

lojbab