Re: TECH: *mo'u

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

Thus lojbab:
`
> 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.

I dispute this. The normal way of expressing this would be
        mi bau la lojban. cusku
in which mi is the x1, and la lojban is the un-numbered (and optional) 'bau'
place of 'cusku'

Any form in which 'bau' is bound in with 'mi' makes it (part of) the x1.
The existing restrictive and non-restrictive forms are acceptable, (though
perhaps a little hard to interpret) because it remains 'mi' that is the x1,
and the 'bau' phrase adds some information to 'mi':

        mi pe bau la lojban. cusku
"Those among me/us who are in Lojban, express..."
        mi ne bau la lojban. cusku
"I/we, who incidentally am/are in Lojban, express..."

but anything treated as a joik or jek in some sense puts the 'bau' into the
x1 role, which is nonsense.  There is a grammatical way of doing this, if
you really want to:

        mi .ebaubo la lojban. cusku
which clearly means the, to me nonsensical
        I, and in some language Lojban, express,
ie      I express and in some language Lojban expresses

The other grammatical way to handle it is indeed to use termsets:

        nu'i mi .e bau la lojban. cusku
which means
        I express, and somebody/thing expresses in Lojban
which could pragmatically mean what is required, but to me only adds confusion
relative to
        mi bau la lojban. cusku
>
> 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.

No, becuase what you are apparently trying to express is fractured. There is
no way that 'bau' belongs in the x1 except as a definitely subordinate
modification of 'mi'.
>
> 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/commonali
 ty
> that is expressed by the construct.

Unless you can give me a convincing example of this, I do not accept the
existence of such a relationship.

>
> 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.

I don't see that this is any different from the cases already adduced. Is
a 'cat-more-than-dog lover' a cat-lover and a dog-lover? if so, then we
can now say
        lo mlatu jesemaubo gerku nelci
If not, it is a logically erroneous construction to refer to it is a
'broda nelci' - though of course in tanru we can get away with grubby logic,
and something like
        lo mlatu je gerku bo mleca nelci
will do.

>
> 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.

I don't think a long lujvo for this grubby and esoteric phrase is a problem.

> 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 languag
 e
> 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.
`
This discussion is useful.


I have just read your later posting about 'mi bau la lojban' and 'do bau lo
glicu' and I see there is a problem.  I will continue to think about this.
I do think that the key is in termsets, however, not some new construction.