Re: RET: left factoring

[Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>]

>I'm facing the problem of "left factoring" sumti of the form
>"le broda brode .e le broda brodi", I mean, something like
>"le broda (brode .e brodi)".
>
>I don't know if it's possible at all. At first I tried
>"le broda brode je brodi", which associates correctly, but doesn't
>mean the same thing. Any ideas? (Please, NO metaphysical discussion
>on connectives!)
>.i ki'e .i co'o mi'e paulos.

Unfortunately, with no metaphysics, we may not know what the problem is.

It is true that the connected tanru is ambiguous and COULD mean something
else, but it could also mean what you want.  Let me put in some specifics
to show this.

le blanu mlatu .e le crino mlatu
le blanu je crino mlatu

le blanu mlatu .e le blanu gerku
le blanu mlatu je gerku
le blanu mlatu joi gerku
le blanu co mlatu je gerku
le blanu poi mlatu gi'e gerku
le mlatu je gerku co blanu


Note frist of all that at least in thsi example, it seems OK to combine the
first terms with je.  Why doesn't it seem to be OK to combine the second
terms?  Proabably because if we back-translate we get the feeling we may be
saying the "joi" connected version rather than the je connected version.
But that is why we allow both JOI and JA in tanru.  The blue cats-and-dogs
may indeed refer to the blue cats and the blue dogs - there is no
necessaity that the referents be simultaneously both cats and dogs.

In this case, we can use the co or poi phrases attached to blanu, but that
is only assuming that the adjectival modification is of a certain and
similar type - specifically that the original sumti meant
le blanu je mlatu .e le blanu je gerku
or should those be joi?
But this does not work for
le gerku zdani .e le gerku cidja

And the latter example is why we as natlang speakers don't feel comfortable
with any reasonable shortening of the two term expression - any formula
seems like it could result in nonsense if the modifiers are of incompatible
types.  (The reason why I put in specifics is because you can't say whether
broda and brode are compatible or not).

That the shortening DOES work with je, is shown by the rearrangement with
co at the bottom of my list - we don't feel put off by that formulation
as much as by the non-co form (the dog-and-cat of type blue).  Or maybe we
are - because in translating it, I used the SINGULAR, which is not a
valid assumption in Lojban.  If you had translated it as
(the dogs-and-cats of type blue) it doesn;t seem as much to imply the
mixed connective.  And sure enough this also works frontwards:
(the blue dogs-and-cats)  because when we pluralize the terms we find it
harder in our minds to mix them - we don't envision some mixed entity  with
multiple cat tails and dog heads.

There is one other connective that feels like it works for me, though the
others may not like it so much: "ce".  If you don't get too hung up
on "ce" implying a set, then "le blanu gerku ce mlatu" certainly
DOES NOT imply a mixing, but rather an unordered set somehow modified.
So the only question is whether someone would insist that this is implying
color attributes to sets - I don't think so.  It is that ce explicitly
avoids mixing whereas joi explicitly mixes, while je is a bit ambiguous.

Does this confuses the issue enough for you?

lojbab