TECH: *mo'u

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@GREBYN.COM>]

We had a discussion about this issue in our (now finally restarted) Monday
night Lojban group meetings.

To try to make some progress, I posed the question of whether we might want
to use the proposed cmavo to attach something other than "more than"
"less than" or "equal to" as a non-logical connective.

Specifically, how about something like linking a person and a language
in a predicate about communication (yes, "tavla" has a language place, but
other predicates don't)
mi ?naubau la lojban cu ciska

The negative side is that argument of Colin's: is the non-logical glomeration
of "me" and "Lojban" a suitable value for the x1 of cusku.  I think in some
sense that it can be - that sense which was the original meaning of *mo'u
- a modal restriction on "me" that is necessary to make the main bridi true
(if you are looking at it in a particular way), and hence not an incidental
statement like "ne" would entail.

Unlike the semau examples we were using, I do not see there being a different
predicate that should become the main bridi in order to express this
properly.

It would appear that Cowan's proposed implementation of this construct at
the termset level would meet most needs, and I think that the construct is
indeed akin to termsets - the modally restricted sumti is in effect a
different sumti of the predicate, one which the BAI tag indicates something
about the nature of the relationship, but which needs to be liked to one
or more particular other sumti in order to fully realize the meaning/commonality
that is expressed by the construct.

On the other hand, I sense that there is a need for something like this in
the tanru (and maybe lujvo) gramm.  I don;t think that even the arguments
on more-than or less than eliminate the usefulness of a tanru modal link,
,
Try the concept of "cat-more-than-dog lover".  How can we express this in a
tanru? At best using a be/bei constructiuon with"fa" and "fe" to specify both
the cat and the dog.  Colin's argument doesn't eliminate this one - there is
no way to make this a tanru based on "more-than" that I can see.

And what if we wanted to make a lujvo for the above concept.  The only way
I can imagine it is to have a rafsi, presumably associated with the "*mo'u"
replacement, which would precede a rafsi for a gismu and make other rafsi
surrounding the gismu be thought of as sumti of the gismu (I hope that is
more clear in this context than I'm afraid it is).

This makes for a long lujvo: mlaty(xu'u)maugerkynelci is the unreduced form
for the above concept, assuming that "xu'umau" is acting like a kind of "joi"
connective.

So the question for Cowan is whether there is a way to add the grammar he
proposes at the term level to the tanru grammar as well.  I don;t see it being
needed at any other places where JOIKs appear.  I'm not sure I see much need
for both a forethought and an afterthought version, though I wouldn;t object.
I do see this as being akin to JOIKs, with the added proviso that there is
this tie both to the BAI set, and in the lujvo world, to the gismu from which
the BAIs are derived.

(One alternative would be something that, instead of using the BAI as the basis
for the connective, it would use a gismu(or selbri) as the basis - this in the
grammar of terms as well as in the grammar of tanru, so as to match what must
be done to make lujvo work.)

Hope this muddle makes sense at least to those who were following the earlier
messages in this thread.  I feel like I'm really groping to try to explain
what I'm thinking of, and it ain;t coming out too well.  I sense with my
Lojbanic instinct that there is a useful extension to the langauge here (I'm
becoming convinced though that we are talking solely extensions to the language
and that the language as it is will work.  But if this is useful, if a bit
cumbersome, it may add a few more dozen flowers to the thousand bloomers that
inhabit the Lojban world.

Enough for 4am.

lojbab