TECH.ADV - non-specific SE

[C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK]

I have noticed a small problem, and have come up with a solution which is
much more general than the problem, but I think might be an interesting
feature to have nonetheless.

The problem is how to refer to more than one (or a non-specific) tergismu of
a selbri. This is not something we often want to do; but there are certain
brivla where two of the tergismu do form a natural collection and we might
want to. For example:

kanxe    is a conjunction, stating: x2 (du'u) and x3 (du'u) are both true
tanru    phrase compound  is a binary metaphor formed with words/concepts x2
         and x3, giving meaning x4 in language x5
mintu    is the same/identical thing as x2 by standard x3
gletu    copulates/fucks/has coitus/sexual intercourse with x2

How, without being long-winded, can we refer in lojban to 'the components of
a tanru'?  The straightforward way is
        "le se tanru be ko'a jo'u le te tanru be ko'a"
but this is both long-winded, and loses a lot of commonality. It can be
shortened to
        "le ke se tanru jo'u te tanru ke'e be ko'a"
but you need the "ke ... ke'e" to get the grouping right, so it isn't much
shorter, and in any case the semantics of internally connected tanru are
not quite clear. I might mean "ja" rather than "jo'u".

Of course there are work-rounds like "le tanrypau be ko'a" but these are
annoyingly obtuse.

My suggestion is a new SE word (I will use xe'e) that leaves the assignment
of sumti to tergismu specifically undefined. Thus in this use

        le xe'e tanru
means
        the thing(s) taking part in a tanru relationship.
Of course this can include the tanru, the meaning, and the language as well:
I am relying on the intentionality of "le" (and the 'signalled ambiguity' of
"xe'e") to save this.

Similarly we can have
        le xe'e kanxe
for
        the arms of the conjunction

However, we can go further, (and make it more useful, I believe). I suggest
that when using "xe'e" all untagged sumti are interpreted freely, but any
explicitly FA-tagged sumti not only apply to the un-converted selbri, but
also take that particular tergismu out of consideration. So

        le xe'e tanru befa lu zdani blanu li'u
means (in full)
        (some of) the things which are in a tanru relationship with
        "xdani blanu" as the tanru - ie the modifier, the modificand,
        the meaning, the language.
and again, we can use "le" and context to conclude that the two parts of
the tanru are what is wanted.

Then again
        le xe'e kitsa
means
        the lovers
but in a specific sense that if we are talking about more than one person they
are in that relationship to each other, as opposed to
        le kitsa
which has no such implication.

The further extension of this idea is to use it predicatively:
        mi la mrvin. xe'e patfu

        I and Mervyn are in a father-relationship
without specifying which way round. Again this leaves open the possibility that
one of us is the te patfu (the mother). This could be handled by

        mi la mrvyn. xe'e patfu fizo'e
where the "fizo'e" plays the function of removing the x3 from the tergismu soup.

Note that this proposal does not require any changes to the syntax. It just
needs a word adding to an existing selma'o, and it also needs a new
interpretive rule; but we do not have these expressed in any formal way anyway.



lujvo and tanru
===============
tanrypau        tanru pagbu
tergismu        te gismu
        but I propose to define it "x1 is the x3'th argument-role
                of (selbri) x2"
        i.e. the x2 of tergismu is not restricted to a gismu, but is any
        selbri. The alternative would be to define the place structure of
        selbri, and then pick out the appropriate place (role) as "selselbri"
        or "terselbri", which would a) be confusing, and b) depend on the
        argument structure of "selbri".
        This is incidentally an example of the distinction between "se broda"
        and "selbroda" that was discussed recently: "te gismu" unequivocally
        means "is an argument role of gismu ...", but we can define "tergismu"
        to apply to any selbri. "selma'o" is widened in a similar way.
        Note also the distinction between "tergismu" and "te bridi". "Te bridi"
        are actual arguments in a predication. "tergismu" are argument roles
        in a selbri (suggesting why "selbri" was once rendered as "*kunbri"
        (empty predicate))