Re: xe'u, PA, NU

la .and. cusku di'e

> (1) I guess the proposals should extend to {lii}.

I think so.  "li'i" is kind of the subjective equivalent of "nu".

> (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 have to agree here.  PA is a wastebasket category, but the maxim of
minimum mutilation tells me that "xe'u" has to go there, considering
how late in the game it is being introduced.

> > Quine also says that propositions are 0-adic intensions, but in Lojban
> > we use a different abstractor:  "du'u". This allows the default
> > assumption to be that "ka" denotes a monadic intension even without
> > "xe'u da" explicitly appearing anywhere (it would tend to be assumed in
> > the x1 place), leaving "du'u" for the 0-adic case. Further, "du'u"
> > provides an x2 place (of the abstraction, not the abstract bridi) which
> > is a textual representation: it relates propositions to sentences.
> 
> (4) Could you explain why propositions are 0-adic intensions?

Because an n-adic intension, in Quine's sense, is an abstract object
derived from an open sentence in n variables (a propositional function
of n variables, in older jargon).  If n = 0, the open sentence becomes
a closed sentence, and a proposition is the abstract object derived from
a closed sentence.  (Note that in this jargon "proposition" is not the
same as "sentence"; sentences are linguistic behaviors, and are concrete;
propositions are abstractions from those behaviors.  This account is
is modulo the systematic type-token ambiguity that is pervasive in Lojban
as elsewhere.)

> (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).

Yes.

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

A sumti-tail is just a syntax-level construct, abstracting "what can come
after LA or LE".  It doesn't have any necessary semantics.  A monadic
intension is achieved by abstracting a 1-place predicate.

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

No more am I, or only just.

> Lojbab:
> > There ARE strings of PA that are ungramamtical,
> 
> Are there? How does the grammar rule them out? Isn't one PA the same as
> another, as far as the grammar's concerned?

Yes.  I think he means "garbageous".

> > Mathematics allows all sorts of weirdness in the name of precision and
> > unambiguity.
> 
> I'm willing to believe that PA yields less gobbledygook than I might
> naively have expected, but there remains plenty of g.gook. Jorge once
> posted a list of examples, and proposed the rule of interpretation such
> that if the presence of word X yields g.gook, the sentence be interpreted
> as if X were not there. This rule works, but not like real natlangs do.

This fnord is obviously not the way natural fnord fnord languages operate
fnord.

> > WhatIS the case is that there exists grammatical Lojban text using PA
> > that has no defined and agreed-upon semantics - that does NOT mean that
> > it is utter gobbledygook
> 
> This is false by any standards other than lojbo ones. This is exactly
> my objection. In natural languages, any construction with no defined
> and agreed-on semantics is ungrammatical.

Yes, but the senses of "defined and agreed-upon" in your two claims are
not the same.  L means "defined and agreed-upon, explicitly, by the
language prescribers" whereas A means "defined and agreed-upon, implicitly,
by the speakers of the language".  L means to allow that some PA strings,
though without prescribed meaning at present, may come to have meaning,
and is at pains not to rule this out by making them ungrammatical.

> Jorge:
> > I think there are three useful NUs: du'u, nu and ka. I adhere to the
> > idea that the rest be forgotten. (I don't understand how du'u is a
> > subtype of ka either.)
> 
> Because it is like a ka with 0 rather than 1 or more variables?
> 
> My objection to {duu} is that it is always singleton in extension,
> so should have sumti rather than selbri status.

Not quite: you omit the x2 of "du'u", which is a text expressing the
proposition which is x1.

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

This was discussed a few years ago, I think.  "fau" means "with-associated-
event", where the event is typically some different event from that
expressed by the bridi.

> 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.

Here you may have a better case; it is probably true that for any <bridi>,
"lo ka <bridi>" expresses a unique object, and with the new "me" we can
recover the predicate if we want it.  However, uniformity of abstractors
is probably more important.

> > {nu} is the most used, and it is the physical realization of the
> > relationship. For instance {mi viska le nu do klama le zarci}. What I
> > see is not the relationship {du'u} but its embodiment {nu}.
> 
> Right. A major property is temporality - nu are associated with times
> and duu arent.

Well, that's shaky.  "le nu li re su'i re du li vo" is probably the same
as "le du'u li re su'i re du li vo", although both are equally temporal
or atemporal or totitemporal or what you will.  "Physical" is a sticky
notion.  There is no problem with "nu" objects that aren't actualized,
like "le nu le djordj. .ualas. cu merko gugde ralju" even though George
Wallace wasn't ever U.S. President.

> > {ka} is very different from those two and requires a blank argument place,
> > because it really gives a function. I missed John's latest proposal for
> > the lambda variable, so I can't really comment, but a PA in that role doesn't
> > make much sense to me. 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.

I take it that And understands this now.

> > (As an aside, I don't think that something like {mi nelci le ka do melbi}
> > makes any sense. It should be {mi nelci le nu do melbi}.
> 
> I agree.

So does the gismu list, which has "(object/state)" for the x2.

> > {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.

There is a kind of implicit "du'u" underlying "jei", which is the truth
value of the proposition that <bridi>.  To say you know the truth value of
a proposition is indeed the same as knowing whether it is true or false.

> > I find the definition as a truth value totally out of place among
> > the NUs. There should be a lujvo that means "x1 is the truth value
> > of x2". The usage definition is ok, but redundant to {du'u xukau}
> > and not so frequent that it is worth the trouble to have a short form.
> 
> Agreed. I think we've had this discussion before. (But since I agree,
> by all means say it again and again.)

What is to fall into x2?  Presumably a "du'u" construct.  The "jei" is
just a more compact version of this.

> > {su'u} has seen little to no use. The two or three times I met it
> > it was used for the indirect question of manner "how", as in "look
> > how they run". I would say that can be taken care of by {tai makau}
> > or {ta'i makau}.
> 
> Well "unspecified abstraction" is a pretty useless meaning. It could
> mean "a person who has asserted that p", or anything.

What exactly it means is specified by its x2 place, so you get
"x1 is an abstraction of <p> of-type x2 (e.g. an asserter, {lo xusra})".
Less mundanely, we have the book titled "Abstraction of (Jesus Christ
is crucified) of-type a downhill-motorcycle-race".  "su'u" allows for
expansion of the abstraction set.

-- 
John Cowan					cowan@ccil.org
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.