WikiDiscuss

On Apr 4, 2005 10:34 AM, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> If {botpi} is not "bottle"
> because of the lid place, then it cannot be
> called bloated, since every place in its
> structure is essential to it.

For someone who accepts the gismu list as is,
no place structure is bloated. Each place structure
defines exactly the meaning of each gismu.

For someone who would like a less arbitrary choice
of basic words, some place structures, as included
in the gi'uste, are bloated, because they correspond to
somewhat abstruse concepts leaving no basic word
for some more basic concept.

> You can't have it
> both ways and the thrust seems to be generally in
> the direction of calling {botpi} bloated.

Calling a place structure bloated is simply saying that
a different concept would have been a better use for the
word form in question.

> Hence,
> {botpi} ought to be compatible with current
> {botpi fo zi'o}.

{broda f* zi'o} covers in general more ground than {broda}.
That's a rule that works for every broda.

{botpi} without an x4 would have been a more general concept
than {botpi} as defined.

> Sorry, if you change the place structure, you
> change the meaning.

Indeed.

> With the same meaning, you
> are stuck with the same place structure.

Indeed.

> > The place structures of the
> > listed gismu, in some
> > cases, are insane.
>
> This simply means that you do not — for whatever
> reason — like that place structure.

Exactly.

> So change
> it — that seems to be what bpfk is all about.

I would very much like to do a rationalization of place
structures. Unfortunately (or fortunately rather) it is
not only up to me.

> The place structure — by your claim — is (by
> definition) exactly right for the concept it
> represents. Anything else would be insane (well,
> wrong any way).

Right. The choice of concept for the word is the
problem. Once the concept is fixed, we are stuck with
it (more or less anyway, we always have the choice
of ignoring the gi'uste).

The claim is that as long as we take the place structure
of {botpi} seriously, then {ta botpi} is incompatible with
{ta botpi fo no da}, just as {ta citka} is incompatible with
{ta citka no da}, and {ta broda} is incompatible with
{ta broda f* noda}. If we make them compatible, we are
changing the sense of the relationship.

> I take it that the popular response to this
> pseudo problem is to leave places empty, with
> various treatments of that response when asked to
> fill in the gaps (I suspect, "I have no idea" and
> "I don't care" would be the most usual
> responses). In short, just what I have been
> reading as the interpretation of blank.

Yes, concentrating on keywords and ignoring place
structures is very common.

> > {ta botpi fo no da} says "that doesn't botpi a
> > single thing",
> > which cannot be equivalent to {ta botpi}, which
> > means
> > "that does botpi". So at least in my
> > understanding of Lojban,
> > omitting {noda} is like omitting {naku}, it
> > always affects the
> > rest of the sentence rather crucially.
>
> And yet there are many sentences that are
> accepted into the corpus and that are even
> thought to be true but that have or may well have
> for all we know just that omission. What I am
> saying is just what people are doing all the time.

What sentences from what corpus? I don't think we have
any officially approved corpus, do we? I certainly don't deny
that people do this sort of thing all the time, but I'm not
sure that they would claim it's correct when pointed out.
That's one of the reasons I proposed at some point to
re-interpret blank in the prescription as {zi'o} rather than
as {zo'e}, to bring the prescription more in line with usage.

mu'o mi'e xorxes