tech:opaque

["John E. Clifford" <pcliffje@CRL.COM>]

&
> NAhE is useful for shifting the whole bridi into Nephalococcygia -
Nephelococcygia
pc
I meant the land of the sober cuckoos.  Sure!

&
should we propose that to CAhE we
add two cmavo for "true of the real world" and "true not necessarily
of the real world", with the former being the default?
pc
In fact, we have those already, _ca'a_ and  _ka'e_.  Maybe we
need something explicitly about stories (my list still has _ci'a_
free, but is badly out of date, I suspect)

&
{xee} meant "any old broda whatsoever", which I think amounts, in
effect, to the same thing as "the quantification on this sumti does
not belong in the bridi the default rules would locate it in".
I vaguely remember {xee} being in LE or PA, but LAhE is a better
selmao for it.
pc:
I don't see that reading: "any old broda whatever" just draws from
whatever the established interpretation of _broda_ is, it says
nothing about how that is established and does not obviously
change that establishment.  I think x wanted to have a leaper, that
would guarantee that the _broda_ down in a _nu_ clause was
drawn from the external assignment.  So, the goal is right (though
more directed) but the reading is questionable.

&:
> We need (in the current depressing state of the language)
why depressing?
pc:
Because it is getting further and further from a natural language
commonality (if not universal) and so harder and harder to say
normal things.  And all for no visible purpose, either practical or
theoretical.

&
You're probably right, but we ought to agree on what this new LAhE
would mean. We already agree that this new LAhE is not needed to
make the hitherto unsayable sayable [unlike the new CAhA, which
would make the unsayable sayable]; so by normal standards, the new
LAhE shouldn't be adopted, but your advocacy is given privileged
attention.
pc:
I am not clear what the new CAhA says that can't be said already
(see above, with appropriate added notes, from BAI, I think).  As
for the LAhE -- which I would advocate, remember, only because
the natural solution got lost somewhere between 1988 and now
and has apparently become unredeemable at this point (a strong
argument for carrying on the kind of conversations we have, that
are said to never come to a conclusion -- if we had argued this a
few years ago, we would not have ever had the gawdawful
change) -- the plea is just that, while we CAN say what we want,
to do so involves profoundly complex locutions for saying what
we have, at first glance (but not at about third) simple expressions
for: real, possibly insuccessful, hunting, for example.  And this is
not a minor problem, since, if you look at the literature, it turns
out that all the logical and semantic vocabulary ("entail," "true,"
etc.) and most of the metascientific ("cause," "explain," "predict,"
etc.) are of that intentional/intensional/propositional group that
create contexts of the problematic sort.  So great slabs of one line
of justification for Lojban has just gotten markedly (factor of 2+)
more complex.
        As for my special clout, sure!, again.  If I had it, we wouldn't
be in this jam in the first place -- or would be out of it by now and into
a very different one, the one I thought we were in originally (specifying
external referents within opaque contexts), which we can deal with by
careful forethought, to be sure.


&
Are we sure that {da tua de broda} is equivalent to {da zou da broda
loi suu de zou de coe}, rather than to {da de zou da broda loi suu de coe}?
The definition of {tua} implies this.
pc:
Implies which (pronoun reference)?  I take it that in _tu'a de_
_de_ is evaluated in the possibly remote world of  _tu'a de_ not
the nearer one of _da broda_.  But I am not *sure* that it it is
meant to -- any flakey thing seems possible these days.  There
may be no opaque contexts in Lojban (and consequently almost
no way to talk about anything of any interest at all).

&
I think the x2 of djica should be a bridi (i.e. duu/kuau). It makes
as much or as little sense to want an apple as it does to want an
event. But events in lojban are something very different from events
elsewhere.
pc:
Since I am not too clear about what your bridi are meant to be, I
have no comment on this one.  I take it that _djica_ takes the
equivalent of a _nu_ clause, whatever you want to call these
things.  I agree that "event" is not ideal but "state-of-affairs"
sounds forced (and misleading, since it might be a process, for
example).  "Situation" maybe? What *those* -- any of them -- are
when we come down to it (intensional objects, functions on
worlds or on the contents of worlds, sentences, ... -- the Handbook
of Philosophical Logic, a fairly conservative tome,  offers, up to
where I am now,  at least five possibilities -- ...) I have no fixed
idea either for Lojban or logic or reality.  I am getting clearer
about how they work -- at least in logic and English and so,
hopefully, in Lojban, though.

&
> These problems need not arise with the artistic subject opaque
> places, "picture of", "book about" and the like, since it is at least
> plausible such things are always about events: Madame X standing
> by a table, not just Madame X, for example.  The plausibility thins
> a bit with compositions on abstract subjects, but we can probably
> circumvent any problems that arise.  If we decide we need to.
That seems mad to me, unless by "event" you mean "bridi/duu" (i.e.
not about Mme X's standing but about that Mme X stands), in which
case I see the appeal of the analysis but nonetheless don't go along
with it. I prefer your suggestion of something in CAhA meaning "is
in a not-necessarily-real world".
pc:
Trying to draw distinctions between "that" clauses and closed gerundives
in English ("Madame X standing by the table") seems pointless to me both
from English and logic, but if you see a difference, then go with the
"that" clause, which is what seems to be aimed at here.  I don't see how
the CAhA is going to fit in here, since it was (I thought) for shifting
whole sentences not just sumti, though I guess we could modify the
predicates in sumti with it.  In that case, I suppose that the special
LAhE would not be needed.  Except for names, where CAhA would apparently
not fit.
pc>|83