Re: More on place structures

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

"61510::GILSON" <gilson%61510.decnet@CCF2.NRL.NAVY.MIL> writes
> I want to say "I like to travel by train better than by bus or plane.

litru = "x1 travels via route x2 by transport modality x3".  The
sticking point was that the route is considered an essential place of
litru-travel (or alternative choices of gismu); how to insure that a
different route is allowed for each mode?  Quantification is done left
to right, so if the modes are in the form of a conjunction with .e,
subsequent instances of "da", and presumably also "zo'e", will have
referents selected independently in each expanded sentence, which is
what you want.

I have trouble to give the example, because traji = "x1 is superlative
in property x2".  What I'm used to is this form:  "x1 is (one of) the
extreme member(s) of set x2 in property x3".  (Possibly plural if
several tie for first place.)  It is implied by mental telepathy (or in
the -gua!spi version, by annotations in the dictionary that the parser
sees) that you are supposed to plug members of x2 into x3 one by one --
therefore the route within x3 will be selected independently. With this
place structure, a maximally pedantic translation is:

loi    trene cu traji   ri           ce      loi  vinji ce
(mass) train    extreme this (train) set-and mass plane set-and

loi so'ikarce le ni  mi se zdile  loi nu     mi litru  [fe zo'e] fi ke'a
mass many-car amount I  am amused mass event I  travel [route]   on it

In Lojban (I think) and -gua!spi (I'm sure), it's generally impractical
to split up the set argument like we do in English, or alternatively,
to assume that when you say "than by bus or plane" it somehow means to
repeat the original sentence with other members substituted.  An
artificial intelligence would have to do a lot of specialized
computation to evaluate traji-extreme, compared to simpler selbri such
as litru.

Sorry about so'ikarci = bus; it's kind of lame but...

Another definition problem: I couldn't locate a decent translation of
"like" or "enjoy".  zdile-amuse was the closest I could get.

                -- jimc