More on place structures

["61510::GILSON" <cbmvax!uunet!CCF2.NRL.NAVY.MIL!pucc.PRINCETON.EDU!gilson!61510.decnet>]

The following message was sent to me:


>Return-Path: <@ccf3.nrl.navy.mil,@pucc.princeton.edu:pthomas@arecibo.aero.org>
>Date: 21 Oct 91 07:48:00 PDT
>From: "PETE THOMAS" <pthomas@arecibo.aero.org>
>Subject: Restriction of place structure
>To: "gilson%61510.decnet" <gilson%61510.decnet%ccf3.nrl.navy.mil@
>        pucc.princeton.edu>

>>I presume that the average Lojbanist does not have the right to coin gismu
>>and therefore, if I want to use a word for a predicate that does not include
>>the x3 place of a 4-place predicate, it has to be a lujvo. I do not, however,
>>see how to go about that, when what I am doing is not a real modification of
>>meaning in the way that a tanru is, but a restriction in scope in the sense
>>I'm talking about.

>Bruce,

>The L.A. discussion group talked about this two days ago at our "mini-Logfest"
>(three participants :-) ).  First off, we found that we did not like the
>implied, zo'e, inclusion of all possible places, tenses, &c.  We talked about
>the cultural assumption in saying E = mc^2.  When I say this, I do not include
>a tense, it does not matter what culture/nationality I am--as long as I define
>the symbols so that they are understood, it does not matter what language I
>speak it in. . .we decided that tenselessness could be construed as a cultural
>bias (i.e. before the 18th century, unchanging timelessness of natural law was
>not a common assumption).  In other words, if speaking to someone of my own
>culture, the zo'e tense I implicitly include in my utterance is one of
>invariance with time.  If speaking to someone of another culture that does not
>share this view, the responsibility would rest with me to ensure the validity
>of my statement--as the listener understands it.  (In other words, if I say
>that E equalled mc^2, and the listener grasps it as "at least up to yesterday"
>I have failed in communicating my point).

>So, we didn't come up with any solid conclusions.  We decided that implicit,
>unspecified places for all modifier were not a good thing for machine parsers,
>that they might be acceptable for intracultural communication, but that we were
>definitely uncomfortable with the idea.

>Let me know what you think.

>--Pete

My response was that he seems to be saying the same thing I was, but he should
have posted to the whole list; when I told him that, this was his reply:


>Return-Path: <@ccf3.nrl.navy.mil:pthomas@arecibo.aero.org>
>Date: 21 Oct 91 15:14:00 PDT
>From: "PETE THOMAS" <pthomas@arecibo.aero.org>
>Subject: RE: Restriction of place structure
>To: "gilson" <gilson%61510.decnet@ccf3.nrl.navy.mil>

>Bruce,

>feel free to forward it to the net. . .I realized after I sent it that I forgot
>to CC the lojban list--and I don't have myself on "automatic CC."

>Sorry about that.  I agree that something is fishy about this implicit
  inclusion
>of all possible places.  I think we need to make some rational decisions about
>it. . .since I am particularly interested in lojban as a machine comprehensible
>language, everything that adds ambiguity or confusion potentially detracts.

>Anyway, back to work for me.  I'll talk to you soon.

>--Pete