Logical extensions to English (!).....

[The Songbringer -- Marnen to the common folk <laibow@BRICK.PURCHASE.EDU>]

To all my fellow conlangers and Lojbanists:

I have just come up with a rather unorthodox idea, and I'd like any help I can
get in testing/implementing it. I am trying to create logical extensions
(conceptual parentheses and a MEX grammar) for English (or French, or German,
or Esperanto, or...; i. e. natural and naturalistic languages -- could we call
this lojgliban.?). The need for these is made clear from this example (taken
from a paper on Lojban negation): does 'Not everybody loves me' mean 'Not
(everybody) loves me,' i. e. 'There are those who do not love me,' or does it
mean 'Not (everybody loves me),' i. e.  'Nobody loves me'? To deal with such
things, I propose -- and I am by no means sure that this is the best solution
-- the adoption of cmavo. Since I have next to no knowledge of Lojban (and
since there are many things I don't like about it anyway) I have created my own
cmavo for parentheses (these are interim, thought up rather hastily at 4 A.M.).
First of all, to deal with nested parentheses, this plan assigns each pair a
number, as follows: ... (0 ... (1 ... (2 ... )2 ... )1 ... )0. Thus, the higher
the number, the less the extent of the pair. The second step is to give these
numbers a verbal form. Here is my (far from perfect) suggestion for this:
( ) | 0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  | x10 x100 x1000 x10000
k p | a  e  i  o  u  sa se si so su |  l    m    n      r
Thus, pair 0 would be ka ... pa, pair 7 would be ksi ... psi, pair 18 would be
kelso [k-e-l-so: (-1-x10-8] ... palso, pair 250 would be kimsala ... pimsala
(or kasalim ... pasalim, but I prefer to put larger powers of 10 first), and so
on. This system provides for 99999 pairs of parentheses. Alternatively, one
could use a simple positional notation, something like the following:
( ) | 0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
k p | ra re ri ro ru sa se si so su
where pair 0 would be kra ... pra, pair 7 would be ksi ... psi, pair 18 would
be kreso ... preso, pair 250 would be krisara ... prisara, etc. This system has
several advantages: there's only one form for each number, and it allows for an
infinite number of parentheses.

Please let me know what you think about this, and let me know about any ideas
you have for a MEX (Mathematical EXpression) grammar. Other than the
parentheses, I have no proposal for MEX syntax yet. I look forward to hearing
from you!

Thanks,
--
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