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relatives and quantifiers (Pt 2 of 2)
- To: John Cowan <cowan@snark.thyrsus.com>
- Subject: relatives and quantifiers (Pt 2 of 2)
- From: CJ FINE <cbmvax!uunet!bradford.ac.uk!C.J.Fine>
- Date: Thu, 9 Jul 1992 13:39:27 BST
- Reply-To: CJ FINE <cbmvax!uunet!bradford.ac.uk!C.J.Fine>
- Sender: Lojban list <cbmvax!uunet!pucc.princeton.edu!LOJBAN>
5. Indefinite sumti
-------------------
[pe'i these are an annoying mistake, complicating
the syntax just so that we can omit a word here
there and thereby muddy the logical structure.]
However, we have them and we can cope.
Transformationally, as I understand it
<quantifier> <selbri>
eg ze prenu
is exactly equivalent to
<quantifier> lo <selbri>
ze lo prenu
and we have precisely the same difficulties as with
any other external quantifier, except that the
<quantifier> and the optional <relative clauses>
are introduced at the same point in the syntax
(indefinite_sumti_94), so for example
ze prenu poi gleki
parses as
[ze prenu [poi gleki]]
with three constituents, and not explicitly as
[ze [prenu [poi gleki]]]
in the way
ze lo prenu poi gleki
does. i.e. the syntax is equivocal here.
There is another form of indefinite sumti, which I
do not understand:
<quantifier> <quantifier> <selbri>
eg voboi ze prenu
I can only guess that it is intended to mean
<quantifier> lo <quantifier> <selbri>
vo lo ze prenu
If this is correct, it has the same problems: it
seems to parse as
voboi [ze prenu] [poi ....]
with the internal qualifier bound tighter to the
selbri, so its problems are no different.
[In passing, I suggest this form be withdrawn. As
far as I know nobody uses it, which is the only
justification for keeping an anomalous
construction; and the relation between
eg voboi prenu
and voboi ze prenu
is rather odd (one would expect the omitted item in
the first to be on the front, rather than the
middle!)]
6. Preposed possessives
-----------------------
The other anomaly in the current grammar is the
preposed possessive (the optional sumti_E_96 in
sumti_tail_113):
le mi cukta
I believe this is precisely equivalent to
le cukta pe mi
This does not interact problematically with
relative clauses, of either type:
lo mi cukta poi xunre = lo cukta pe mi zi'e
poi xunre
restricts the set of books to those which are both
mine and red.
lo mi cukta noi xunre = lo cukta pe mi zi'e
noi xunre
restricts the set to books which are mine, and
comments that they (my books) are red.
But it does not work at all with internal
quantifiers.
lomi ci cukta
which is always used to mean
'my three books', i.e.
'all books, restricted to those belong to me,
there are three of these'
(= lo ci [cukta pe mi])
is actually defined to be
lo mi [ci cukta] = [lo ci cukta] pe mi
'my books, out of the three' , i.e.
'all books (there are three), restricted
to those which belong to me'
while,
*lo ci mi cukta
which has some hope of meaning what we want, is not
even valid!
[It is true that these forms with 'lo' are relatively unusual, and it
is more common to use 'le', which once again gets round the logical
problems by pragmatics; but I think the problems are there nonetheless.]
7. Summary of the problems
--------------------------
There are two basic problems, one of them in two
parts.
1a. restrictive relatives belong inside external
quantifiers, incidental relatives belong outside.
1b. restrictive relatives belong inside internal
quantifiers, incidental relatives belong outside.
2. preposed possessives belong inside internal
quantifiers.
8. Suggestions for problem 1
----------------------------
There are a number of possibilities I can think of.
a) Nothing.
Thus far, we have found this area to be workable.
However, wait until you try to teach the semantics
to a computer. This will require rules something
like the following:
quantified sumti:
store the quantifier, and go ahead and
interpret the sumti including any relative
clauses. Then select the specified number from
the set of denoted items. If there are any
incidental clauses stored, now apply them.
internal quantifier:
store the quantifier, and go ahead and
interpret the selbri, and carry the set of
denoted items forward.
relative clauses:
interpret each clause in turn. If it is a
restrictive, select appropriately from the
current set of denoted items. If it is an
incidental, remember it.
At the end of the relative clauses, if there
is an internal quantifier stored, use it to
select an appropriate number from the set.
Then carry the set forward.
Possible, but hideous, and not worthy of something
described as a logical language. (And preposed
possessives will give a further complication).
b) The minimal change I can see is to require all
restrictives to precede all incidentals, and modify
the grammar as follows to reinterpret almost what
we have:
sumti_C_93
: sumti_D_95
| indefinite_sumti_94
| sumti_D_95 incidental
| restricted_sumti
| restricted_sumti ZIhEK_820 incidental
;
/* Restricted_sumti needs to be distinguished from
sumti_D because we need the ZIhEK after it before
any incidental clauses. This distinction has to be
carried right down */
sumti_D_95
: sumti_E_96
| quantifier_300 sumti_E_96
;
restricted_sumti
: restricted_sumti_A
| quantifier_300 restricted_sumti_A
;
sumti_E_96
: sumti_F_97
| LAhE_561 sumti_C_93
| NAhE_BO_809 sumti_C_93
;
sumti_F_97
: sumti_H_99
| GEK_807 sumti_90 GIK_816 sumti_C_93
;
restricted_sumti_A
: sumti_H_99 restrictive
| restricted_description
;
sumti_H_99
: anaphora_400
| LA_558 cmene_A_404
| LI_566 MEX_310 LOhO_gap_472
| description_112
| quote_arg_432
;
restrictive
: restrictive_A
| restrictive ZIhEK_820 restrictive_A
;
restrictive_A
: POI sentence_40 KUhO_gap_469
: PE term_81 GEhU_gap_464
;
incidental
: incidental_A
| incidental ZIhEK_820 incidental_A
;
incidental_A
: NOI_584 sentence_40 KUhO_gap_469
: GOI_542 term_81 GEhU_gap_464
;
description_112
: LA_558 sumti_tail_113 gap_450
| LE_562 sumti_tail_113 gap_450
| LUhI_572 sumti_90 LUhU_gap_463
;
restricted_description
: LA_558 sumti_tail_113 restrictive
| LE_562 sumti_tail_113 restrictive
;
sumti_tail_113
: sumti_tail_A_114
| sumti_E_96 sumti_tail_A_114
| quantifier_300 sumti_90
;
sumti_tail_A_114
: bri_string_130
| quantifier_300 bri_string_130
;
(I have not bothered with following through LAhO,
GEKs, "le <quant> <sumti>" or indefinite_sumti)
I believe this will produce just the same surface
strings as we have at present, except that all
incidentals will have to follow all restrictives.
The parse will however be different: the
incidentals will lie outside the sumti_D, while the
restrictives will lie within the scope of the
external quantifier, and (in the case of a
description without KU) within the scope of the
internal quantifier. (Note that selma'o NOI and GOI
have to be split, and that ZIhE performs some very
strange functions).
The only thing in favour of this suggestion is that
it does the minimum damage to existing texts. It
complicates the syntax remarkably and - in the name
of compatibility - confusingly.
c) My preference is to introduce three specific
locations for relatives, thus
so'a lo panono cukta poi mi nelci ku poi
dopa'a nelci ku'o noi cfika
would parse as
{[so'a {[lo panono {cukta poi mi nelci} ku]
[poi dopa'a nelci ku'o]}] [noi cfika]}
i.e.
almost all of
those of
the hundred
books I like
that you also like
which incidentally are fiction...
sumti_C_93
: sumti_D_95
: sumti_D_95 incidental
| indefinite_sumti_94
;
indefinite_sumti_94
: indefinite_A
| indefinite_A incidental
;
indefinite_A
: quantifier_300 indefinite_B
| indefinite_B
;
indefinite_B
: sumti_tail_A_114 gap_450 restrictive
| sumti_tail_A_114 gap_450
;
/* Or sumti_tail_B both times if we withdraw the
doubly-quantified indefinite */
sumti_D_95
: sumti_E_96
| quantifier_300 sumti_E_96
;
sumti_E_96
: sumti_F_97
| LAhE_561 sumti_C_93
| NAhE_BO_809 sumti_C_93
;
sumti_F_97
: sumti_G_98
| GEK_807 sumti_90 GIK_816 sumti_C_93
/* negation of sumti GEK handled by negation of
entire sumti in E_96 above */
;
sumti_G_98
: sumti_H_99
| sumti_H_99 restrictive
;
sumti_H_99
: anaphora_400
| LA_558 cmene_A_404
| LI_566 MEX_310 LOhO_gap_472
| description_112
| quote_arg_432
;
restrictive
: restrictive_A
| restrictive ZIhEK_820
restrictive_A
;
restrictive_A
: PE term_81 GEhU_gap_464
| POI sentence_40 KUhO_gap_469
;
incidental
: incidental_A
| incidental ZIhEK_820
incidental_A
;
incidental_A
: GOI_542 term_81 GEhU_gap_464
| NOI_584 sentence_40 KUhO_gap_469
;
description_112
: LA_558 sumti_tail_113 gap_450
| LE_562 sumti_tail_113 gap_450
| LUhI_572 sumti_90 LUhU_gap_463
;
sumti_tail_113
: sumti_tail_A_114
| sumti_E_96 sumti_tail_A_114
| quantifier_300 sumti_90
;
sumti_tail_A_114
: sumti_tail_B
| quantifier_300 sumti_tail_B
;
sumti_tail_B
: bri_string_130
| bri_string_130 restrictive
;
d) I considered a solution with arbitrarily nested
scopes, each of which was limited by a quantifier
and/or restrictives, and each of which could have
an incidental attached to it, thus:
*[so'oboi
{
< [so'i
{
<lo tarci
> poi se viska tu'a le terdi ku'o
} noi melbi ku'o
]
> poi mi di'i catlu ke'a ku'o
} no'u la ze mensi
]
but this requires a much more complicated grammar,
and I think it can be managed by structures already
existing at a higher level (KE or LUhI). At any rate,
I did not investigate its syntax carefully.
I think (c) is the best solution. It does not do
a lot of injury to existing texts: as long as they
don't mix restrictive and incidental clauses, they
will still parse; if they do, the two sets need to
be sorted out, and the first (restrictive) set
ended by a KUhO/GEhU (or by a KU if there is a
description). And the scoping will make sense.
Note that something like
le ci cukta poi mi nelci
will parse as
le [ci [cukta [poi mi nelci]]]
but you can force the restriction outside by
[le [ci cukta ku] [poi mi nelci]
which I claim is selecting those I like from among
the three books.
[I note in passing that, since the relationship
between quantifiers and relative clauses is here
strictly defined, it would not be difficult to add
preposed relatives, such as I suggested a few
months ago. They would still need to distinguish
the placing for restrictives and incidentals.
This was NOT the rationale for these suggestions,
though they did come out of the analysis I did to
understand the lojbangirz's objections to preposed
relatives.]
9. Suggestions for problem 2
----------------------------
a) Do nothing
We've coped up to now, but again the semantic rule
is nasty.
b) Ban the quantifier from a "lemi" type
description. The only thing in favour of this is
that it won't require things to be changed around;
but it will still make some existing utterances
invalid, and require a change to the syntax, as
well as forbidding something that we might want to
say.
c) Reverse the [sumti-4] and the [quantifier] in
[sumti-tail], to give
sumti_tail_113
: sumti_tail_A_114
| quantifier_300 sumti_tail_A_114
| quantifier_300 sumti_90
;
sumti_tail_A_114
: bri_string_130
| sumti_E_96 bri_string_130
;
hence "leci mi cukta"
It will take us a little getting used to, but I
think this is logically greatly preferable.
10. Conclusion
--------------
I have presented at length some logical problems in
our current sumti grammar, and made some
suggestions:
1. Withdraw the <quant> <quant> <selbri> form of
indefinite sumti
2. Distinguish restrictive from incidental clauses,
and define three distinct places where they may
occur: incidental ones only outside quantified
arguments, restrictive ones both inside external
quantifiers, and inside internal quantifiers in
descriptions.
3. Reverse the order of the internal quantifier and
the preposed possessive in descriptions.
The three suggestions are all independent of one
another.
I have not looked at vocatives: since they do not
include quantifiers, they do not really have a
problem, though for consistency they should be
changed consistently with any changes to solve
problem 1.
.ua.ui mi'e kolin