Re: replies re. ka & mamta be ma

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

And:
> "Go away" is imperative, and the grammar says it is a command. "I
> command you to go away" is declarative, and the grammar says it is
> an assertion. The same goes for Lojban.

No problem with that. I just don't think there needs to be a simple
way to say "for a certain card, pick that card". If you want to say
it with imperatives instead of using {minde}, it can be done:
{ko'a goi da poi karda  i ko cuxna ko'a}. It is such an unusual
request, that the xo'u form is not really needed.

> The exact nature of the
> difference is still a matter of debate, but it is clear that there
> is a difference (I have my own analysis, but shan't inflict it upon
> my fellow list-members). The difference is more than a matter of brevity.
> It is similar to the difference between "me" and "the person speaking".

Well, why not inflict it upon us? Maybe it's relevant to Lojban.

> > If xo'u was simply a jump to an outer prenex, it wouldn't affect the
> > rule that everything has scope over what it precedes. I would like
> > to preserve that rule without exceptions.
> Doesn't something in an outer prenex have scope over something in an
> inner prenex?

Yes, I see that there may be complications if there is something else
in the inner prenex. Another reason for me to oppose xo'u.

> Linguists often disagree on what counts as simplicity. And since they
> use different formalisms or no formalism at all, the disagreement is
> not resolvable. I happen to work in a framework where the exceptionality
> of a rule is costless (i.e. the rule itself adds complexity to the
> grammar, but in most cases its status as an exception imposes no cost).
> This view seems to me to suit natural language, which is riddled with
> exceptions to virtually everything.

That would seem to allow for a lot of rules. I would think the less rules,
the simpler, but as you say, who can say for sure what simplicity is?

> I wasn't claiming that {xohu da} suffices for {makau} as indirect
> interrogatives in a duhu-clause. I have previously offered "She knows
> the identity of the set of colours of the house" as a way of
> rendering "She knows what colour the house is".

Yes, and I disagreed with you, because an identity is not a fact, and
one knows (djuno) facts. I would agree that you can say "she knows
something (some fact) about the identity of...", or that "she knows
what is the identity of...", but the first is ambiguous, and for the
second you fall into makau again.

> >        ko'a se pluka le nu le zdani cu skari makau
> > is more general, because it includes the possibility for example that
> > {le zdani cu skari noda}, or {le zdani cu skari reda}. The speaker
> > doesn't know the answer to {le zdani cu skari ma}, but does know
> > that whatever is the answer, ko'a likes that fact.
>
> "She likes the identity of the set of colours of the house" would
> allow for these possibilities.

"She likes what the identity of the set of... is", not the identity in
itself. What's likable about an identity? (And what was your Lojban
rendering of "the identity"? I don't think {le ka du} works, but I don't
remember if it was that.)

> I think I'm clear now about {makau},
> and don't think it is necessary (i.e. we could manage without it),
> but as you're so fond of it I wouldn't want to argue for abandoning
> it.

I suppose we could do without it, but at the cost of a lot of verborrhea.
How would you say {ko'a cusku le sedu'u xokau prenu ba klama} = "She said
how many people are coming."

> > > However, let's go back to makau in the frica example, since
> > > I have at long last understood adequately (I hope) what you intend.
> > >   koha kohe frica le ka keha se skari makau
> > >   Koha and kohe differ in terms of the colour they are.
> > >   Koha and kohe differ by virtue of the fact that they are the colour
> > >     they are.
> > >   ro da, da is member of {koha, kohe}, ro de, da skari de:
> > >      koha kohe frica le nu da skari de
> > > There's an ugly repetition of {skari}, but it is sayable.
> > There you are essentially saying two sentences:
> >        da zo'u ko'a ko'e frica le nu ko'a skari da
> >        ije de zo'u ko'a ko'e frica le nu ko'e skari de
>
> Don't you think that your makau version is in a sense saying two
> sentences as well?

No, that is exactly what {ke'a} (or whatever is the lambda variable)
saves you from. It leaves the property as a function with its
argument place empty, so that the difference is not that function
evaluated at any particular argument, but the function itself.
The reason that that function is the difference is that it evaluates
to different things, but those values are not the difference, the
difference is the function.

> {Makau} rewrites as the answer to a potential
> question, so in {koha kohe frice le ka keha skari makau}, makau
> ought to be replaceable by the colours of keha = koha and kohe.

But ke'a is not equal to either ko'a or ko'e. ke'a is a place keeper,
for a place that remains empty in this sentence. (That the sentence
can be re-expressed in ways where you would fill that place is another
matter. In that sentence, ke'a is not replaced by anything.)

Jorge