Re: your mail

[cowan (John Cowan)]

la stiv. rais. cusku di'e:
> I hope you'll excuse an intrusion by a non-lojbani.  The only predlang I know
> and speak right now is Loglan, though I'm beginning to work on -gua!spi.  I'm
> interested in the differences between Loglan and Lojban, and hope we can learn
> something from each other.

So say we all.  I think you will find that the differences are peripheral
and superficial, rather than fundamental.

> The recent messages about identity sentences make me wonder whether
> Lojban has truly retained the Loglandic distinction between predication and
> identification.
> 
> Consider the cmavo du, for example.  If du is at all like Loglan bi,

It is exactly the same.

> it is not a predicate.  Predicates are used to make claims which can be
> validated or falsified; bi is not.  Identifications are not true or false, just
> more or less helpful to one's audience.  So lojbab's remark that
> 
> >"du" IS an identity 'predicate', and its morphology alone flags it as
> >different from other predicate words.  It claims that the two sumti on
> >either side are alternate and equivalent designations for the same
> >thing. Translate it best as the mathematical "=" sign.
> 
> seems rather odd.

I think you fail to give due weight to the quotation marks around the
word "'predicate'".  Also, the phrase "its morphology alone" could be
misread as "only its morphology", whereas the intent was something like
"its morphology without help from anything else".  Let me rewrite:

>"du" IS an identity pseudo-predicate; its morphology suffices to indicate
>that it is different from other predicate words.

> If the following statement is correct, there is a great divergence between
> Lojban and Loglan, for in Loglan, predications and identities are always kept
> distinct, even syntactically.
> 
> > Lojban's predicate grammar requires even an identity sentence to be
> >phrased as a predication, and as such is a mirror image of natural
> >languages.

I don't think this says that an identity sentence IS a predication, but
rather that the grammar of identity sentences is the same as that of
predications.

In Notebook 3, JCB says that except for Preparser considerations, 
"bi" and friends are effectively PREDAs.  Examining the actual grammar
shows that BI cannot appear in logically connected constructs, so that
"5 is less than or equal to 10" requires an allolex of BI for
"less than or equal to".  Lojban handles this with normal "mleca ja du".

> [complaint about cultural predicates deleted]

These are examples of what Institute Loglan calls N-Prims.  "budjo" does not
mean "x1 is a buddha" but rather "x1 is Buddhist/Buddha-related in
property/quality x2".  We consider the cultural gismu to be closely related
to "me la" constructions (same in Lojban and Institute Loglan); thus
"xriso" means much the same as "me la xrist."  The place structure of
"me" predicates is not defined by JCB; we would greatly appreciate help
in defining them.

The whole reason for the existence of the cultural gismu in Lojban is
for constructing lujvo (complexes).  Institute Loglan has 3 gismu for
the culture, the language, and the people of each selected culture,
and these gismu cannot be used in lujvo.  Of course, it is often not the
case that these notions match up one-for-one:  many merki speak spana.
In addition, there is an unrelated gismu for the currency.

Lojban attempts to solve these problems in a more systematic way.
There is guaranteed to be at least one rafsi (affix) for every cultural gismu.
"merko" for example has "mer" as its short rafsi ("merky-" is also usable); the
American dollar is "meryru'u" = "merko rupnu" = "American currency-unit".
We can likewise talk about "merbau" = "American language", "merklu" =
"American culture", and so on.  The problems arise when we attempt to say
exactly what the cultural gismu mean when used outside tanru/lujvo.


-- 
cowan@snark.thyrsus.com		...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban