Re: tech: harangue on le/lo (opaque)

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

> x:
> What does {mi djica lo plise} mean in your scheme?
> pc:
> Actually, on my full scheme, it means "there is an apple I want."
> But that is ONLY because it contracts _mi djica tu'a xe'e lo plise_.

Well, at least we agree on the meaning, if not on how it comes about.

> If that convention is not in force, it means "I want an apple" where
> the apple I want need have no existence outside my ideational
> realm, where the claim might be true even if no apples existed.

Without the convention, {tu'a} is provided automatically?

That seems to reflect the English subject-predicate structure rather
than Lojban's arguments-predicate. If you say in English "an apple is
wanted by me" then I think that the opacity is usually lost, because
"an apple" is now the subject.

> And, of course, this does allow that there is
> something you want, but it is usually not an apple but an abstract
> something.

That works with {lo'e} too. {lo'e plise} is an abstract object.

> As witness the rather reasonable position that there is
> an average unicorn but no unicorns (a view which solves a
> different but related problem).

"Average" in the sense of "archetypal", yes. In a statistical sense,
I don't see it.

>  Also, _lo'e_ is singular; what do
> you say if you want a dozen apples (not any particular ones -- any
> dozen will do -- up to minimum standards anyhow -- and no claim
> that there are a dozen apples to be had)?

        mi djica lo'e plise paremei
        I want an apple-dozen.
        I am in apple-dozen wanting.


> (4)     mi kalte da poi cinfo
>         I hunt something that is a lion.
>  pc:
> Without the convention 4 would be different from 3 and incorrect
> (I would like it to be ungrammatical, but that seems to make too
> much of a problem given the difficulty of changing rules).

It would cause lots of problems! You would have {kalte} having a
different grammar than {viska}, for example.

> We
> know that, despite your best efforts in another thread, prenexing
> just is more complicated than you imagine 8)3

Prenexing is not always trivial, but until now there was never a
suggestion that it worked differently for different gismu. I think
that would really be a drawback.

> but, in this case, the
> correct form -- with _tu'a_ -- clearly marks the failure of prenexing
> (that is one of _tu'a_s two main functions, in fact).

I don't argue with that at all. All I'm saying is that in the absence
of {tu'a} there should be no impediment to prenexing. All places should
be transparent. (The transparent interpretation always makes sense,
even though sometimes it does not agree with the ordinary meaning of
the naive translation into English.)

>  Another approach might be to claim that
> _zbasu_ has an intentional side and then put _tu'a_ on x2 to mark
> that.

Well, you would say {zbasu tu'a lo zdani} where I would say
{zbasu lo'e zdani}.

>  So maybe it has to be a lujvo, in which case I, the coiner
> (actually you did, but I take it that it was at my instigation), have a
> pretty free hand about the place structure.

This is an altogether different subject, but I disagree that the
coiner has a pretty free hand. Coiners may use lujvo as they please,
but the place structure will be the one accepted by the community
of speakers. I would hope that people will prefer regular ones rather
than ones made to fit the occasion.

> And I, of course, opt to
> make it one-place.   The problem with the established logic of "He
> builds houses" is that either you end up asserting that there are or
> were houses that he built, which need not be part of what he is
> claiming (and may be false though his claim is true) or you end up
> in another opaque context and that leads quickly to a claim close
> to "every context is opaque at least some of the time" which (even
> if true) is not where we want to be at this point.

I would say that pretty much every place of a gismu can be opaque, yes.
Another example discussed here once was "that is a human head". I would
say {ta stedu lo'e remna}. You may want to say {ta stedu tu'a lo remna},
but that is not how people use {tu'a}. {tu'a} is usually used to mean
"the event associated with ...", and we may not want to say that "that
is the head of some event associated with a human".

> There are also a
> couple of other devices to try: a tag "professionally," of a type
> related to "figuratively," that cuts off some moves like prenexing,
> or professional lujvo that have appropriately different place
> structures (and intentional deep structures).

We already have the gismu:

jibri  x1 is a job/occupation/employment/vocation (a type of work regularly
       done for pay) of person x2.

Which allows us to say:

        ko'a se jibri le nu zbasu loi zdani
        He has as occupation the event of there being houses
        that he builds.

There is no problem with finding longwinded dismemberments of the
intended meaning in each particular case. The question is, do we
want/have a general way of treating the opacity that every place
structure could have? I say that we do:


        ko'a kalte lo'e cinfo
        She hunts lions.

        ko'e zbasu lo'e zdani
        He builds houses.

        ta stedu lo'e remna
        That is a human head.

        mi nelci lo'e plise
        I like apples.

        do pilno lo'e valsi le nu ciksi lo'e logji
        You use words to explain logic.

        ti katna lo'e pelji
        This cuts paper.

        lo'e jinci cu katna ta
        Scissors cut that. (That is cut by scissors.)

You can probably get an opaque sense out of any gismu place. Of course,
you could rephrase so as to avoid it, but why not allow the opaque
meanings along with the transparent ones?

> I can also imagine
> someone (indeed, I can image who that someone might be) arguing
> for doing the work with some ideational marker -- _si'o_, is it?  or
> _da'i_ or ... .

I don't understand {si'o}, everybody seems to have a different idea
of what it means. As for {da'i}, I don't know. Is {lo da'i plise}
something that supposedly is an apple, or does it mean that a
supposed apple would fit as the right argument?

> For now, the convention allows you to write what you have always
> written when you were sure that the thing mentioned in the opaque
> context existed (that was why the convention was set up after all --
> for you in particular).

I don't think we are disagreeing on the essence then. You seem to be
saying that there is a clear cut-off between places that provide an
opaque context (like the x2 of djica and kalte) and places that
don't provide such context. I would say that there is no such cut-off.
Some places ar more prone to opacity than others, but all places can
be transparent or opaque given the appropriate circumstances. For
example, we could make the x1 of djica instead of the x2 as the opaque
place:

        lo'e junri jajypre cu mutce djica le vi pixra
        Serious collectors want this painting very much.
        This painting is much wanted by serious collectors.
        This painting is much wanted by the serious collector.

Here I am not saying that there are some serious collectors that want
the painting, but rather I am mentioning a property of the painting,
which is "being serious-collector-wanted". The x2 is in this case
transparent:

        lo'e junri jajypre cu mutce djica lo pixra
        There is a painting much wanted by serious collectors.

> When the things may not, I recommend
> _tu'a_, since that is what it was created for and _lo'e_ doesn't work.

I'm still not sure why {lo'e} doesn't work. I find {tu'a} much too
vague, and it has been used for something else, even if it was created
for this.

Jorge