Re: `at least one ' vrs `one or more'

[JORGE JOAQUIN LLAMBIAS <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

la erik cusku di'e

 >>As a matter of style, I prefer to use {nu} rather than {zu'o} or
>>{za'i}, because I feel that these don't add anything to the
>>meaning of the sentence and they just complicate it, so

>This was mostly an excercise in playing with chapter 15(?).  In this
>case more specificity wasn't really needed, I agree.

My feeling is that more specificity for nu is never needed.
At least I haven't felt the need in real usage and I haven't
even seen a made-up example to show when it could be
needed. Lojban has too many cmavo anyway, so I'm quite
happy not making any effort to learn those four.

 >Ah.  Actual events as opposed to possible/category-of events?
>How far is the abstraction, in other words, from relationship to an
>instance/occurance of that relationship, or from relationship to a
>category of hypothetical events?  Is that the root of the discussion?

Yes, that's a good way to put it. {nu} seems odd in that it's
the only selbri in the language that works unmarked for
hypotheticals. (Well, I guess not the only one, {lo se djica}
and the like would also be hypotheticals. But why should
these be unlike mlatu, as And points out.)

>[sorry I came in late.]

Don't worry. Discussions in this list always come back in new
and updated editions, and usually we learn something new each time.

>I grepped the reference grammar to no avail.  How does one speak of
>hypothetical entities?  That-which-doesn't-exist-but-for-discussion-is a
>whatever.  For example, "A duck walks into a bar" {le datka cu cadzu le
>kafybarja}.

        i da'i lo datka cu dzukla le kafybarja
        Let's say a duck walks into the bar.

[{cadzu} is "walks _on_ x2"]

> I'm not talking about a real duck.  I'm not even calling a
>real object a duck.  Could {le datka} refer to my non-existant,
>hypothetical duck?  If so, then {le nu} could be a non-existant,
>hypothetical event, no?

I think not. {le} may be used non-veridically, but that's different
than hypothetically.

co'o mi'e xorxes