Re: cukta

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

la xorxes. cusku di'e

> cukta     cku      book
> x1 is a book about subject/theme/story x2 by author x3 for audience
> x4 preserved in medium x5    1f 163
> [this is a quantity of text, and not the physical object (= selpapri);
> x2 may be a convention rather than a subject];
> (cf. cfika, prina, prosa, tcidu)
>
> -------------------
>
>
> In the lessons, there are many examples that use {cukta} as a physical
> object. For example:

[examples omitted]

This is a battle that I lost, several Logfests ago, under the title of
"Is a 'blank book' a book?"  Lojban Central declared that it was not,
and kept the given place structure.

> I agree with the lessons, rather than with the gi'uste (they are closer
> to what 'usage' is, no?). If we want to insist that it is not a physical
> object, then we should not use 'book' in the definition, no matter how
> helpful it is as a keyword, because a book is in the first place a physical
> object, and the more abstract meaning of 'work' ("obra" in Spanish, "verko"
> in Esp-o), is, I think, secondary.

One can sleaze out of this by noting that all examples use "le", and are
therefore subject to the speaker's whim.

> Are two copies of "War and Peace" that are preserved in different media
> one {cukta}, or two {cukta}? If one, then the x5 place is wrong, if two,
> then we are talking of the physical object.

I'm not sure what either you or the gismu list means by "medium".  I interpret
the list as intending x5 to distinguish a book bound in hard covers, from
one bound in paper covers, from one stored on CD-ROM.  This is distinct
from the notion that physically distinct objects which are copies of the same
work in the same form represent distinct books.

> As an aside, I also don't understand the comment that x2 may be a convention.

This is the survival of my attempt to rewrite this and other related place
structures to get away from the notion of "subject".  What is the "subject"
of Beckett's "Waiting For Godot"?  Or still worse, his >How It Is<?
Nevertheless, these works do fall within a certain "literary convention",
which serves the same descriptive purpose as the "subject"

--
John Cowan              sharing account <lojbab@access.digex.net> for now
                e'osai ko sarji la lojban.