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[lojbab (Bob LeChevalier)]

Subject: The end of an evolution - equality for tagged sumti

3rd of 6 related messages

3. There is an aspect of cleft place structures that is more tricky to
solve than merely how to unambiguously extract and sumti raise, whether
by explicitly tagged sumti-raising, or by lexeme BAI.  This question
broadens to cover all use of abstractions in Lojban sentences.

With uncleft place structures such as the one in John Cowan's example
from message 1:

            lenu          mi cinta cu galfi    le  bitmu
            The event-of (I  paint)   modifies the wall

            tu'a                 mi                  galfi    le  bitmu
            [The abstraction-of] I [doing something] modifies the wall.

            gau        mi                             galfi    le  bitmu
            with-agent me (some-x1-event-unspecified) modifies the wall

how do you talk about the agent ("mi" in this case).  "le galfi" is the
event, not the agent.  No amount of fiddling with "tu'a" will solve the
problem, because as noted in message 2, sumti-raising does not convey
the exact semantic role of the raised sumti in the bridi relation.  In
addition, there has been up to now no method of turning a tagged sumti
place into a description.  John Cowan has written up such a proposal,
which requires a grammar change, in the style of other grammar changes
that have been proposed.  As baseline changes they require this more
formal writeup to be properly considered.  Following is the original
writeup prepared by John Cowan, which is followed by discussion and some
alternative versions that others have preferred.  Your opinion is
wanted.

    Tech Fix 28 (grammar change):

    CURRENT LANGUAGE:

    Official doctrine states that the sumti tcita of a bridi constitute
    nonstandard places which are co-equal with the regular numbered places.
    However, there is no way to make these places the subject of a
    description by moving them into a numbered (specifically, the x1) place.

    PROPOSED CHANGE:

    Add JAI+tag as the equivalent of a SE conversion.  (JAI is a new
    selma'o.)  This is usable only on selbri, not in the other places where
    SE is legal.  The result is that the tcita sumti comes to occupy the x1
    place, and the original x1-x5 places are "pushed down" to x2-x6.

    RATIONALE:

    It is currently messy to say "the time of my going to the store"; this
    looks like an abstraction, but does not match any existing abstractor.
    It can be handled quite neatly with:

    le                   jai ca            klama be mi bei le  zarci
    the (thing which is) simultaneous-with going by me to  the store

    In particular, when a place is meant to be an abstract sumti,
    and a concrete sumti appears ("sumti raising"), these JAI-based
    descriptors provide sumti access to modal places as well as standard
    ones.

This clearly brings the tagged 'modal sumti' into full equivalence with
the place structure sumti.  However, Athelstan noted that the change as
worded causes difficulty in pedagogy.  As a result, two alternatives to
the above 'PROPOSED CHANGE' have been formed.  These each address a
separate difficulty with the wording of John's proposal.  A third
alternative is provided for comment; it is a minor modification of
either of the other two.

a) Alternative #1

     >Add JAI+tag as the equivalent of a SE conversion. ...
                     ---------------------------------

Athelstan noted that the definition of a SE conversion involves an
exchange of sumti.  So it is misleading to call this an 'equivalent' of
SE.  New Lojbanists taught the more direct conversions will be confused
when we tell them that not all conversions are the same.  So at the very
least, we would need to change this to:

    Add JAI+tag as another kind of conversion besides SE.  (JAI is a new
    selma'o.)  This is usable only on selbri, not in the other places where
    SE is legal.  The result is that the tcita sumti comes to occupy the x1
    place, and the original x1-x5 places are "pushed down" to x2-x6.

But he further noted that the proposal (separated from an actual formal
grammar change list) supports not only description use JAI+tag, but
also main selbri use JAI+tag.  Having two different methods of reordering
the places in conversion, depending on what is being stuck up front, does
not lead to exact equivalence between the places, and might cause confusion
in learners:

    mi klama    le  zarci  ca             ti
    I  go    to the market at-the-time-of this-point
    I go to the store at this point (in time).

is being taught as equivalent to

    mi klama be le zarci bei ca ti

Hence the easy formation of a description by replacing "mi" with "le"

    le  klama    be le  zarci  bei ca         ti
    The go-er    to the market at-the-time-of this-point
    The go-er to the store at this point (in time).

If JAI+tag is the equivalent of SE in non-description selbri like this,
it will also work the same way:

    ti   jai ca         klama mi       le  zarci
    This is-the-time-of going by me to the market.

    le  jai ca  klama be mi bei le  zarci
    the-time-of going by me to  the market.

But if we are sumti-raising around a cleft place structure problem,
and you are trying to replace the event by the agent, confusion will reign

            gau        mi                             galfi    le  bitmu
            with-agent me (some-x1-event-unspecified) modifies the wall

must become as a description

     le  jai gau  galfi     be fi le bitmu
                               --
     The actor-in modifying       the wall.

Without the "fi", the wall is the former first place of galfi, the event
that modifies, which is not what is intended.

There is a subtle aspect of this proposal that must be explored openly.
At one point it was proposed to JCB that all SE conversions renumber the
place structures in this way, by pushing them down.  He rejected this.
Our standard in designing Lojban has been to have a good linguistic
reason for any deviations from JCB's Loglan policies.  I do not support
any change in this standard.  In any case, I doubt that it would be
seriously considered to make all conversions push-down at this late
stage.

A second problem (which I can't confirm since I haven't seen John's formal
grammar implementation) is that the two conversions may interact leading
to strange results.  Neither conversion is commutative, and each varies
from that state in a different way.  Thus the conversion "sete" results
in the order (with numbering based on the original place structure) of

   x2 [sete selbri] x3 x1 (x4 x5 ...)

Calculating such compounded conversions is complicated and unnecessary
because the numbering tags of selma'o FA allow any arrangement to be
specified overtly.  The only feature of SE conversion not obtainable
with FA is the specification of the x1 place accessible from a
description.  Compound conversions don't affect this specification,
hence are irrelevant.

But with two different kinds of conversion, there is a reason for
compounding.  Given a SE converted selbri, you want to pull out the time
of that relation into a description.  If you don't unconvert first, the
place numbering gets really strange.  And different from that if you
have a 'jai+tag' version of a selbri and try to convert IT using SE.

These separately are all weak arguments but together justify Athelstan's
position that 'jai+tag conversion' should indeed be identical with SE
conversion, including the exchange of sumti.  But what is the x1 place
exchanged with when we do a 'jai+tag' conversion.  Athelstan calls this
an 'extradimensional place', one that lies outside the numerical
sequence since a tagged sumti lies outside the numerical sequence of the
place structure.  To access this place in a specified description, we
need an 'extradimensional' member of FA.

A logical word to assign to this would be a fVV cmavo.  There are none
free.  However, in another part of this proposal, John Cowan had
proposed a different case of a word needing an fVV cmavo (see message
5).  With two needs in this area, and a lot of soul-searching, I am
choosing to propose grabbing "fai" and "fi'e" from GOhA (which would
become "nei" and "no'a" respectively.  This incidentally brings "nei"
into opposition with "dei".)  As I am about the only person that has
memorized and used these, changing them is a lesser sin than some other
choices.  "fi'e" would be freed for other uses, and "fai" used as
the extradimensional FA tag.  Given this, the change becomes:

b) Alernative #2

    PROPOSED CHANGE:

    Add JAI+tag as another variety of SE conversion.  (JAI is a new
    selma'o.)  This is usable on selbri in descriptions or main selbri, not
    in the other places where SE is legal (logical connectives, modals,
    etc.).  The result is that the tcita sumti comes to occupy the x1 place,
    and the original x1 place is switched by the conversion to an
    un-numbered place which is given the cmavo "fai" (selma'o FA).  All
    other places numbers remain unchanged as in SE conversions.

    To make room for this usage, the current "fai" and "fi'e" (selma'o
    GOhA) are changed respectively to "nei" and "no'a"


    RATIONALE:

    It is currently messy to say "the time of my going to the store"; this
    looks like an abstraction, but does not match any existing abstractor.
    It can be handled quite neatly with:

    le                   jai ca            klama be le  zarci bei fai mi
    the (thing which is) simultaneous-with going to the store     by  me.

    In particular, when attempting to access a place that is found within
    the subordinate clause of an abstract sumti (accomplished using either
    explicit sumti raising or implicit raising using a BAI modal tag, these
    JAI-based descriptors provide description sumti access to the modal
    variety, as in:

    le  jai gau  galfi     be le bitmu
    The actor-in modifying    the wall.


c) Alternative #3

This is an alternative mostly for comment.  Athelstan doubts the
utility of allowing 'jai+tag conversion' except in descriptions.  I
think they have little utility but are useful in showing the expansion
and analytical transformation of the description to a standard selbri.
Also, historically, if we find an option in the language, someone
discovers as useful distinction for it.  (Nick, go to it!)

However, for consideration, either of the two proposals can be modified
to:

    Add JAI+tag as        ...       SE conversion.  (JAI is a new
    selma'o.)  This is usable on selbri only in descriptions, not in
    other places where SE is allowed ...
----
lojbab = Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
         2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA
         703-385-0273
         lojbab@snark.thyrsus.com