WikiDiscuss

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> On 6/27/05, John E Clifford
> <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> > Are you saying that {po'o} means "only
> relevant
> > case" and {po'o sai} means "only case
> period"?
>
> Not necessarily, just more emphatic. Something
> like
> "the only" and "the very only", if that were
> possible in
> English.

I don't think it is; in any clearly meaningful
way, surely not.

> But don't worry if it makes no sense to you. I
> have never
> used it or seen it used and I don't really see
> much point
> in trying to explain further if it's not
> immediately obvious.

But you seem to think it makes sense, which
raises the question "What sense does it make?"
As usual when you make these kinds of claims, I
have provided a possible meaning, which you say
is not it. If this is coming by a rule, what is
the rule and how does it apply here. Since the
case is very different from the other ones, it
does not seem to be a generalization from them
(they intensify the sense of the moodified term,
this apparently intensifies some scalable feature
associated with some attached sumti).

> > Still, the notion of adding an extreme case
> is
> > very different from almost any other use of
> > {sai}, so, even if this makes sense here,
>
> {ji'a} takes care of the additional case bit.
> {sai} just
> adds the extremeness part, which is what {sai}
> normally does.

But it normally makes stronger (not extreme, your
habits to the contrary notwithstanding) whatever
is the meaning of the word it modifies
grammatically; here it does not work that way at
all and, indeed, does not obviously make anything
present in the sentence stronger.

> > > > As noted, I have no objection to the
> usage,
> > > just
> > > > to the presentation that suggests (and is
> > > > apparently intended) that the given
> > > > interpretation comes from the
> interpretation
> > > of
> > > > the components in some regular way.
> > >
> > > Ok, noted.
> >
> > It would be nice if it were acted upon as
> well,
> > and retroactively to some earlier cases.
>
> I note what your objection is, but since I
> don't share it, I'm not
> sure what kind of action you expect.

It is a pity you do not share my objection, since
it has the virtue of not involving me in what has
so far been mainly an unsuccessful (even
ludicrous) attempt to explain disparate bits of
Lojban by some single schema (which doesn't even
work in its home ground in the way you seem to
think it does there and elsewhere). It also
relieves me of the task (which you have but will
refuse as usual to undertake) of actually saying
how this schema works in particular cases. As
usual, I would hope (but never expectafter all
these years) that you would put up what is needed
or not make the claims in the first place (or
withdraw them once made).