Re: la'e

[And Rosta <a.rosta@UCLAN.AC.UK>]

Lojbab:
> >> 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.

I think it is a bad thing that {lu ... li`u} should be ambiguous
between the type/token reading. Since the token reading can be
got be {lo lu .. li`u}, I think plain {lu .. li`u} should have
the type reading only.

> >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.

The inherent meaning is determinate. Some utterables may have
no inherent meaning.

> What is the "inherent meaning" of "Meow" as spoken by my cat,

There is none.

> and quoted
> in Lojban - totally depndent on context.

It's not in the least dependent 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.

The inherent meaning is:

   X, the speaker of "I love you", loves Y, the address of "I love
   you"

> >> 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.

I don't care if it makes sense to you. I only care if it makes
sense to you simply by extrapolating from known cases.

Of course I don't believe it does make sense to you that way.
Rather, you are perhaps relying partly on glico intuitions,
and partly on the reasoning "Well - I can't think of anything
else it could mean, so it must mean this".

> 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.

You go off and speak your relexified-English version of Lojban.

But please let the rest of us get on with using a language
with more stringent criteria of what makes sense.

> There is no requirement that the semantic analysis of this
> construct be consistent with the semantic analysis of that construct.

There is no *requirement*, but it nonetheless is the default for
every language.

> 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.

Given your objectionable definition of making sense, this is true.

> 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",

We *don't* know what "ledu'u xukau ko'a badri" means unless we
know what selbri it is sumti of. I have demonstrated this in
earlier postings.

> then "le sedu'u xukau ko'a badri" makes sense.

It would be better if you proved this by translating it into
predicate logic.

> 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"

Again, the only way to prove that your reasoning is not faulty is
to show what that meaning is.

As it happens, I have already done this, in an earlier message.

> >> >> 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

OK up to here.

> and if they communicate successfully.

Of course I reject that condition.

--And