Re: diversity

[Gerald Koenig <jlk@NETCOM.COM>]

JL:
>la djer cusku di'e

>Better use a real experimental cmavo, which are of the form xV'V.
>I think the only ones currently in use are xe'e and xa'e, so you can
>pick any of the other 23 possibilities. (All the ge'V are already
>taken anyway, so it doesn't make much sense to use ge'x.)

  GK: Thanks for the explanation.  I wasn't really happy with those
    kludges xe'eway.  I'll say xa'a (the first vowel) for the begin
    scope marker and xu'u (the last vowel) for the end scope marker.

>I suppose your cmavo would be in selmaho LAhE, that changes one sumti
>into another type of sumti.

GK> It is broader than just a sumti changer. It requires the use of the
same kind of arguments (sumti) that are used in First Order Language
(FOL).  To give an idea of what is a proper argument in FOL I quote
Barwise & Etchemendy:

                     "Names can be introduced in FOL to refer to
anything that can be considered an object.  But we construe the notion
of 'object' pretty flexibly-to cover anything we can make claims
about.  We've already seen languages with names for people, sets,
numbers, and...blocks. Sometimes we will want to have names for other
kinds of 'objects' like days or times."

Personally, I think this is stretching FOL a bit.  But my point is that
there is an existing culture of logicians who write and use FOL. It
works.  It is sort of the basic English of logic.  In the lojban project
we have leapt forward to an experimental 2nd order grammar and we are
having all the troubles that our model Indo-european languages have.
The advantage of having xa'a-xu'u is that we can step back temporarily
to a proven, relatively bug-free system, for a word or a book; if we are
willing to give up for a moment the vastly increased expressiveness of a
2nd order language.  Clarity is gained, expressive power is lost.
It is a more restrictive grammar because it does not take predications
as arguments. But it does allow us to speak clearly and precisely of
objects. Of course we want both worlds, and we can have them.
>>
>> ABSTRACT SUMTI PLACE======>CONCRETE SUMTI PLACE
>> (2nd order)          *ge'x  (first order)
>>
>> CONCRETE SUMTI ======>ABSTRACT SUMTI
>> (1st order)    tu'a   (2nd order)
>>
>> To get djica and her kin working right we can alter the nature of the
>> permissible variables with tu'a or alter the nature of the receptor
>> site for the variables with *ge'x. A third way is the lujvo route
>> suggested by lojbab and .and.
JL>
>And a fourth way would be to make {djica} mean what that supposed lujvo
>would mean, but this is incompatible with the others.
>
>What I don't like about your proposal is that the meaning of the selbri
>is somehow changed by the sumti that fill the places. There are already
>many predicates that accept either objects or events, without special
>marking. Why should djica &Co be an exception?

GK:  Djica & her mysterious friends  would not be an exception.  This
device can be used anywhere it would make sense to do so. As to why
djica etc. are so defined, I do not know the historical rationale but I
am sure there is a good one.

        I think you are right that there is some change in the meaning
of the selbri  when an object is in X2 instead of an event. Colin
pointed this out to me in the pool example. Also I believe that meaning
does not attach neatly to single words but rather to whole sentences
and paragraphs.  But this is the nature of any language, we can't have
an exact selbri for every shade of meaning.

JL>
>If the answer is because they are often used with opaque references, then
>why not mark the opaque references as such, instead of forbidding all
>object references? Isn't that throwing the baby with the bathwater or
>something?
>
GK: It doesn't forbid object references, rather it requires them. But
only so long as you want: for one sumti, one bridi, or an entire
utterence.
I don't want to misinterpret you, but just in case you meant to say
'non-object references' here, then I would say that if you wanted to
express an event sumti with djica and mark it with some future opaque
marker, that is o.k.  The grammar shifter cmavo xa'a-xu'u causes
transparency through temporary objectification, and transparancy is a
side-effect.  The main benefit is to be able to speak of objects with
selbri that lack an object place where you want it. I also see a use
where we want machine-translatable language.

JL>
>Or do you propose that in cases for example like:
>
>>> zanru zar     zau  approve
>>> x1 approves of/gives favor to plan/action x2 (object/event)
>
>we should also use your cmavo when we talk about an object?

GK:
Yes, if you want to emphasize that X2 is an object. But normally it
would not be necessary as anything in LE would be considered an object
and anything in NU an event.


JL>
>There is a simple meaning that can be given to {mi nitcu ti}. Why not
>allow it?
>

GK:
Again, I don't know the design history.  But under my proposal you
*could* say { mi nitcu xa'a ti}.  Then "ti" would have to be an object,
person, etc. and not an event or a predicate.  In any case the
xa'a-xu'u method provides a general solution to temporarily re-defining
selbri so they can be used in a concrete way as they normally are in
first order logic.  I havn't seen the ramifications of the  change on
opacity as I just got this idea a few days ago.

>Jorge
>
--------------
GK:
Here is a further example:
                           Cherchez la femme.

definition:  mukti  x1 is the motive for action/event x2 to actor x3
(I take it that both x1 and x2 are event-type sumti.)

(2nd order)   (current)  (event style)   (required)  ("high lojban")

i. tu'a le ninmu pu mukti fi la l'ail l'ovet fe le nu ri ciska le
se sanga
Something about the woman was the motive to Lyle Lovett for the event
of his writing the song.

(1st order)   (proposed)  (object style)  (optional)  ("low lojban")

i. xa'a le ninmu pu mukti fi la l'ail l'ovet  fe le se sanga poi
ra  ciska xu'u
The woman was the motive to Lyle Lovett for the song which he wrote.

In this case the current, 2nd order expression  seems more precise,
flexible, and subject to modification or expansion. However the second
is preferred for its directness by my son, who writes songs. It is a
matter of personal taste. They do connote a difference in point of
view:  one rooted in objects and the other in sets or classes.

Both these sentences are, well, understandable English.
The current parser sees both these sentences as error-free.
Why not allow both these sentences?

Here is some background from the person who laid the blueprint for this
language, lojban, at least in my opinion, Quine:

On 2nd order language:
Thus if we extend truth-function theory by introducing quantifiers '(p)'
'(q)', '(Ep)', etc. we can then no longer dismiss statement letters as
schematic.  Instead we must view them as variables taking appropriate
entities as values, namely, propositions or, better, truth values, ....
We come out with a theory involving universals, or anyway abstract
entities."
"The ontologically crucial step of positing a universe of classes or
other abstract entities can be made to seem a small step, rather
naturally taken, if represented as a mere matter of letting erstwhile
schematic letters creep into quantifiers.  Thus it was that '(p)' was
admitted unchanged into quantifers ..... Similarly, in an imaginative
reenactment of the genesis of class theory, let us now consider in
detail how class theory proceeds from quantification theory by binding
erstwhile schematic predicate letters."
"Classical mathematics has roughly the above theory as its foundation,
subject, however, to one or another arbitrary restriction, of such kind
as to restore consistency without disturbing Cantor's result."
"By treating predicate letters as variables of quantification we
precipitated a torrent of universals against which intuition is
powerless.  We can no longer see what we are doing, nor where the flood
is carrying us.  Our precautions against contradictions are ad hoc
devices, justified only in that, or in so far as, they seem to work."

On 1st order language as an only language:
"The heroic or quixotic position is that of the nominalist, who
foreswears quantification over universals, for example, classes,
altogether.  He remains free to accept the logic of truth functions and
quantification and identity, and also any fixed predicates he likes
which apply to particulars ... He can accept laws which contain
variables for classes and relations and numbers, as long as the laws are
asserted as holding for all values of those variables; for he can treat
such laws as schemata, like the laws of truth functions and
quantification.  But bound variables for classes or relations or
numbers, if they occur in existential quantifiers or in universal
quantifiers within subordinate clauses, must be renounced by the
nominalist in all contexts in which he cannot explain them away by
paraphrase.  He must renounce them when he needs them."

Try xa'a, you'll like it.
djer