Re: What the *%$@ does "nu" mean?

["Mark E. Shoulson" <shoulson@CS.COLUMBIA.EDU>]

>Date:         Wed, 26 Nov 1997 10:14:06 -0500
>From: John Cowan <cowan@DRV.CBC.COM>
>Organization: Lojban Peripheral
>

[thus And:]

>> > ni'o
>> > I think you are correct that in general the Lojban quotation words
>> > refer to types rather than tokens, although the notions "type"
>> > and "token" are problematic when one refers to complex objects:
>> > the token "John loves only John" contains two tokens of "John",
>> > but the corresponding type <John loves only John>, does it contain
>> > two distinct types of <John>, or is there (as intuition asserts) only
>> > one type of <John>?
>>
>> That depends on your view of names.
>
>Sorry, I didn't mean to drag in names.  Very well:  in the sentence-type
><The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick.>, are there two distinct
>word-types <sixth>, or is that nonsense because there is only
>one word-type <sixth>?  Presumably types should contain sub-types,
>as tokens unquestionably contain sub-tokens.  If not, what do
>complex types contain?

Just a quickie here...

Not like I've actually been able to follow much of the rest of the
discussions going on with this, but I have been gamely reading and trying.
I got a little lost with this type/token stuff you're using here, and I
thought I sort of understood how texts worked in Lojban.  Do you mean
"type" and "token" sort of like non-terminal and terminal in a formal
grammar?  Or like a terminal and the specific instance? (e.g. KOhA-type,
with the token "da" instantiating it)  Or something else entirely?  Just
trying to keep up with the Rostas...

~mark