la'e

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

>> Even if you disagree with that, I don't see what we gain by restricting
>> {la'e lu ... li'u} to those meanings that arise from the _inherent_
>> properties of uttering the text, rather than to those meanings that
>> arise from any given uttering of the text.
>
>First off, that would require {lu..li`u} to be a text-token, which may
>or may not be a good thing.

Gadfly here, who doesn't know why or why not text-tokenhood is a good or
bad thing.

>But my main objection is that the "inherent meaning" is determinate and
>the "noninherent meaning" is indeterminate.

I disagree.  The inherent meaning is of course often ambiguous.

The difference between lu..li'u and lo'u...le'u and zoi .kuot...  .kuot.
is merely labelling what kind of stuff is in the quote marks.  There may
be no linguistic meaning at all to the latter two quotes, or there may
be a special meaning to certain people under certain circumstances.
What is the "inherent meaning" of "Meow" as spoken by my cat, and quoted
in Lojban - totally depndent on context.  This can then lead us to look
at lu ... li'u the same way.  What is the inherent meaning of "I love
you"?  You need to know the values of the pronouns, which will be
context dependent.

>- based on misunderstandings, which in turn arise from an erroneous
>inference of noninherent meaning from inherent meaning. Lojban's
>cultural literalism is well-advised, and I think the distinction
>should be carried over to the meaning of {la`e}.

la'e, like much else in the language, is by the standards of logic quite
intellectually sloppy.  We know historically that la'e is the inverse of
lu'e.  We also know historically that lu'e can be any sign that conveys
the meaning in question.  This suggests that la'e must indicate the/any
meaning pointed at by the referent - probably the "in-mind" referent
determined by the speaker (per the definition of "le", which is of
course JCB's original gadri).  You could attach relative clauses to
clarify which of possible meanings is intended.

>> To those worried about the horribly arcane nature of this discussion,
>> we are trying to decide whether {le sedu'u xukau ko'a badri} makes
>> sense, as in {mi cusku le sedu'u xukau ko'a badri}, which to me
>> means "I say whether she is sad".
>
>My position is that I don't see how it makes sense if we simply
>extrapolate from known cases. But that does not rule out declaring
>this a valid usage.

It makes sense to me.  Indeed anything in Lojban makes sense if the
listener can ascribe meaning to it.  IMHO, anything in Lojban make
EMINENT sense if the listener can ascribe the meaning that the speaker
INTENDED.  There is no requirement that the semantic analysis of this
construct be consistent with the semantic analysis of that construct.

Making sense of course has little to do with goodness of Lojban.  I
could but this paragraph in zoi quotes and it would be valid Lojban and
convey the intended meaning, but most would not consider that "good"
Lojban.

I should note that especially by the previous couple of paragraphs,
Jorge's use of "le" on "sedu'u" makes it valid.

My analysis, for what little it is worth:  "se du'u" is a "text"
expression that represents the predication conveyed within the Lojban
abstraction where "text" refers to some quotable string.  The original
use of du'u was for MEX, and the typical content of the abstraction
would have been a mathematical equation using "du" (hence the cmavo
choice).  We coined the cmavo to be able to talk about the kinds of
things one wishes to say about mathematical equations - that they are
valid, that they are invalid, that they follow from the premises, etc.
Once we realized that du'u had effectively the same grammar as "nu" but
with a restrcited set of mathematical selbri, we opened it to include
talking about all predications in the manner which we might want to talk
about an equation.  Later it was pointed out to us that some of the
things we might say about an equation or predication pertain to the
equation itself and some to the form in which the equation/predication
was expressed, and du'u gained a second place.

If we know what "xukau ko'a badri" means as a Lojban predication, which
we must if we can talk about "ledu'u xukau ko'a badri", then "le sedu'u
xukau ko'a badri" makes sense.

Furthermore, since we use (or at least Jorge uses %^) "ledu'u xukau ko'a
badri", and a du'u abstraction is a 2-place predicate, there must by
definition be a "le sedu'u xukau ko'a badri"

>> >> Then we don't have an automatic way of expanding
>> >> {broda le du'u xukau brode}, because it will depend on
>> >> the meaning of {broda}. The expansion for {djuno} is
>> >> different than the one for {kucli}.
>> >
>> >That's right.
>>
>> Not very nice, though.
>
>The price of having the unexpanded forms is that they don't
>all expand in the same way.

We agree again.  It is useful simply that there be a definite expansion
to any given construct.  Systematicity to such expansion is a luxury
that would cripple the language as a human language.  Since you are
talking in particular about definitions of brivla, it simply is not
practical for any coiner/user of a new brivla to perform the abstruse
analysis you guys want to perform in order to expand everything to some
kind of ideal logical form.  I consider even the Chapter 12 conventions
for lujvo-making to be too much analysis (though I accept its usefulness
for dictionary purposes at least for helping determine the place
strctures of brivla where actual usage does not indicate the users'
intent regarding possible unfilled places).

But real people are going to coin/borrow brivla like kucli, and use them
in presumably intellectually sloppy ways.  Since we are in the
descriptive phase rather than prescriptive phase of the language, we are
constrained to consider these ways valid Lojban if they are well-formed
and if they communicate successfully.  (I repeat my distinction between
"valid" Lojban and "good Lojban", lest we reopen certain ironic topics).


----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                        703-385-0273
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