Re: Miscellanea

[cbmvax!uunet!MATH.UCLA.EDU!pucc.PRINCETON.EDU!jimc]

nsn@MULLIAN.EE.MU.OZ.AU sends a portmanteau:
> You know, I was waiting for jimc to come up with dikni cmavo. I formulated th
> above rule in May, but abandoned it because it doesn't work with most BAI.
> For example, {bau}. {mi sanga bau la lojban} is not: {la lojban cu bangu lenu
> mi sanga}, because that's not the interpretation of the x2 of {bangu}.

(Alleged Rule: in a <BAI> phrase the tagged sumti is interpreted in x1
of the gismu associated with the BAI, and the main bridi is in x2, and
analogously (point of confusion) for sentence connectives.)

I would call it a blemish in the places of bangu, or maybe better, the
BAI for saying what language a phrase is in should not be "bau" but
something else derived from a gismu with the right places.  Like jufra,
"x1 is a sentence about x2 in language x3", and you have to say teju'a
(I suppose ju'a is already assigned to something else), and you need
a heuristic rule a' la -gua!spi to guide the main bridi anaphor into
the place expecting a sentence.  Or you have to redefine "jufra" with
x2 and x3 swapped, and say seju'a.  What a mess!  But I value consistent
rules and would put up with this particular mess.

> basri'a: x1 causes that x2 replaces x3. Again pushdown.
> basri'a is a translation of (animate agent) replaces (something1) by (some-
> thing2). But something1 corresponds to x3 above, and something2 to x2. The
> places come out jumbled.

Not if you interpret the English as "x1 substitutes x2 for x3".  It's a
simple :-) conversion problem, more in the English than in the Lojban.

> But there are no transitives in lojban; and a uniform
> interpretation of such compounds is not logical perversion, it is internal
> consistency. Why should we have one rule for zmadu and another for basti?

Hear, hear!

> But when the crunch comes to the bite (or whatever), you can't be dikni all
> the time.

But it's surprising how much you can be dikni, particularly if you have
full power to adjust gismu places to work well with the adopted dikyjvo
rules.

> mi djuno ledu'u do klama dakau...    (+alternatives and translation)
> where the sentence might be said to be seen in some absolute form, a phrase
> in a PROLOG program. All three refer to an instantiation of X in GOES(you,X).
> Let the instantiation of X be y. Then
> GOES(you,y) is in your databank... (etc.)
>
> The UI-ist interpretation Mark uses has
>
> GOES(you,X) is in your databank; GOES(you,y) is in my databank (etc.)

I am VERY happy to see this kind of analysis of the Lojban sentences
and would like to see a lot more of it.  In a logical language it's
very important to nail down the semantics of what is said.  This is why
I emphasize so much the algorithmic and mechanistic procedures for
analysing the referents of a sumti or bridi -- as a supplementary issue
to just what the individual gismu "really" mean.  I know I give a
headache to many people.  I regret that, but I think it's a very
important issue.

                -- jimc