Re: xe'u, PA, NU

[Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>]

And:
> These proposals about {xe'u} (and {me}) have reached me at last,
> & sound good.

They haven't reached me (the computers here were out of the net for a
week). John, could you send them to me, please?

> (2) I see why {xeu} is in PA - because wherever {xeu} is okay, any PA
>     is okay. But it is only because total garbage is deemed grammatical
>     that it can be claimed that wherever a PA is okay, so is {xeu}.

I don't see the point of letting even more grammatical nonsense loose
on the language, just because there is already a lot of it there. The
job of the lambda variable is to keep one or maybe more argument slots
open, so the most direct way of doing this is with a KOhA. In fact,
{ke'a} is already doing exactly that for relative clauses and I argue
that it can do the job for {ka} just as well.

Compare:

        mi klama le zarci poi ke'a lamji le ckule
        I go to the store which is next to the school.

        mi klama le zarci pe le ka ke'a lamji le ckule
        I go to the store which is associated with the property
        of being next to the school.

One of the arguments against {ke'a} is that sometimes we may need
to keep open more than one argument place. The solution is to use
subscripts: {ke'axi.abu}, {ke'axi.ebu}, {ke'axi.ibu}, {ke'axi.obu},
{ke'axi.ubu}. I use a, e, i, o, u as subscripts because that's how
Lojban usually orders argument places, cf. vo'a, vo'e, vo'i, vo'o,
vo'u, and fa, fe, fi, fo, fu. I'm not sure how the order of the
arguments would be handled with {xe'u}.

Another argument against {ke'a} is what to do when a relative clause
is used together with a {ka}: same deal, use {ke'axi.abu} for {ka}
and bare {ke'a} for the relative clause.

As for embedded {ka}s, numerical subscripts should be used, but that
is no different with {xe'u}.

In practice, none of the above complications arise much. What's more,
it is rare that even one {ke'a} need be explicited at all, just as
with relative clauses, so why introduce a new cmavo to learn? The
current language can cope with the problem with elegance and without
any additions.


> (5) Is it possible for a {ka} phrase to denote a 0-adic intension?
> - I suppose it is, but only by explicitly filling every sumti (with
> non-xeu-begadried sumti).

You mean that {mi djuno le ka ta blanu} means the same as {mi djuno
le du'u ta blanu}? I'm not sure I like it.

Besides, how can you be sure that you've filled every argument? {ke'a}
(or {xe'u da}) need not always appear at the first argument level. For
example:

        mi frica do le ka le mamta be ke'a cu klama le zarci
        I differ from you in the property of our respective
        mothers going to the store.

If I don't explicit the {ke'a}:

         mi frica do le ka le mamta cu klama le zarci

I think it is still pretty clear where it would go, but it is not
one of the first level arguments, so you could fill all of those and
still be left with a "monadic intension".

Another example is that of lojbab's runningbacks.

> (6) Does a sumti-tail express a monadic intension?

If you are asking whether {le broda} is the same as {le ka ke'a broda},
then definitely not. A bare sumti-tail doesn't express anything, as far
as I can tell.

> [NB I'm not au fait with the terminology.]

Neither am I, so I may not have understood the question.

> My objection to {duu} is that it is always singleton in extension,
> so should have sumti rather than selbri status.

Maybe it would have made more sense to have it in selmaho LU. It would
also have allowed for more complex propositions.

> My objection to {nu} is that really the event is an argument of the
> bridi, so {jai fau broda} is truer to the meaning.

I think that it is a sufficiently distinct argument that the current
structure makes sense. In any case, your use of {fau} is pretty
non-standard, since BAIs don't usually behave like that.

> My objection to {ka} was that it should be a sumti tail, not a selbri,
> but now that I get an inkling of its relationship to {duu} I guess it
> should be a sumti.

Again, perhaps it should have been a LU.

> So my objections are not only that most members of NU are not useful,
> but also that only {sio} really warrants the syntax of NU (i.e. selbri
> containing bridi).

I don't really understand {si'o}.

> > I am tempted to say that {le nu broda} is {la'e le du'u broda}.
> I hope you won't succumb, else I won't know what you mean. What do you
> mean?

Well, put it the other way. What else could the referent of a propositon
be? The proposition can be seen as the referent of the utterance, I think
that we agreed about that some time ago, so {le du'u broda} is {la'e lu
broda li'u}, but if we want to say that the proposition has in its turn
a referent, I would say that it has to be its manifestation in the world,
i.e. the event {le nu broda}.

Of course, it may also be that it is better not to think of a proposition
as having referents, it was just an idea.

> > What is needed is a KOhA to keep an argument place
> > open. I will comment further when I have a chance to read the actual
> > proposal.
> It seems pretty close to your suggestions, except that there's no mention
> of that mind-bending stuff you were trying to do with {kau} at the same
> time.

The {kau} phenomenon is a sepaarte story, and I don't think it is all that
mind-bending:

        mi frica do le ka ke'a dunda
        I differ from you in the property of being a giver.

        mi frica do le ka ke'a dunda makau
        I differ from you in what we give.

        mi frica do le ka ke'a dunda fi makau
        I differ from you in who we give to.

        mi frica do le ka ke'a dunda makau makau
        I differ from you in what we give to whom.

They all say that we differ in the property of being givers, but the last
three give more information: the difference between us comes from what is
the answer to {ke'a dunda ma}, {ke'a dunda fi ma} and {ke'a dunda ma ma}
respectively.

> > {jei}, {su'u} and {ni} are generally used as indirect questions.
> Does {suu} actually get used?

Here are some statistics for number of appearances from the Lojban text
in my archives:

nu:     2440
du'u:   568
ka:     477
za'i:   53
ni:     52
mu'e:   46
si'o:   38
jei:    35
li'i:   32
su'u:   18
pu'u:   17
zu'a:   6

> > {jei} has two meanings: by official definition it is a truth value. By
> > usage it is the yes/no indirect question "whether", equivalent to
> > {du'u xukau}.
> If every truth-value is unique to the proposition it is truth value of,
> then {jei} works as "whether". But I don't know anyone who thinks that
> truth-values are thus unique.

I'm not sure what you mean by your comment. If {jei} gives a truth value,
i.e. a number, unique or not, to a proposition, it _cannot_ be used as
"whether". A number is not an indirect question.

Compare with the two uses of "where" as indirect question and as place
holder:

        I know where John went. (indirect question: I know
                                the answer to the question
                                "Where did John go?")

        I know the place where John went. (Place holder: He went to New York,
                                           and I know New York because
                                           I've been there.)


If I know that John went to New York, that means that I know where
John went, but not that I know New York.

"Whether" is always used for indirect questions like the first sentence.
{jei} as officially defined gives a number, as if there was another
abstraction {xei} that meant "the place where <bridi> takes place", which
could be used to translate the second sentence, but not the first.

> > I don't agree that {du'u xukau} in any way suggests that there are
> > only two possible answers corresponding to truth values 1 and 0.
> I agree, but NA has only 2 members at present. But we discuss this in
> a separate message.

Just remember that {xu} is not in selmaho NA.

> >  The
> > subjectiveness seems more to depend on the predicate being used rather
> > than on the abstraction itself.
> No, {sio} is good. It's a relationship between a proposition and a mind.
> Very useful.

Can you give an example of how it would be used? Is {mi pensi le du'u
do klama le zarci} different from {mi pensi le si'o do klama le zarci}?

> True, it is not used much, but then current NU usage is a
> mess.

I can't disagree with that.

> As for {lii}, I think the test is supposed to be whether there is some
> alternative way to say "the experience of [the experiencer's] having a
> leg", bearing in mind that one can have the experience without having
> the leg. if anyone has the ingenuity to do this without {lii}, it is
> you.

Something like: {mi lifri le nu pada tuple mi}? What do you mean that
one can have an experience without it actually happening? Are you
talking about virtual reality and such? If so, then it is a matter
of using the right predicate. Within the virtual reality the event does
happen.

Jorge