Re: xor questions (was Re: indirect Qs (was Re: On logji lo

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

>>Feel free to quote Book at me, but so far as I am concerned
>>lu'a lu'i = lu'a.  You do not need to convert first one way and then the
>other.
>
>Well, feel free to quote Book at me as well, but so far as I am
>concerned they're not the same. For example: {lu'a lu'i ci girzu}
>is "a member of a set of three groups", i.e., one of the three groups,
>whereas {lu'a ci girzu} is "a member of three groups", not one of the
>three groups but a common member of the three.

I am pretty sure the last is invalid, by perhaps Cowan will speak up.
The intent, for what it was worth, was that the lu'a series were converters,
and the thing(s) inside the "parentheses" was a set enumeration and later
we added masses.  So it looks like lu'i is converting to a set, and then
lu'a is converting back to individuals.  I see no way to get the members
from girzu via these converters.  pa girzu could be considered a mass, but
is more primarily an individual unit.

>>There are probably a variety of other formulas that would work.  I am
>>claiming the exclusive or (or maybe I need no'u to do so) and also asking
>>what the contents are.
>
>Yes, but you're not asking that the answer be either {lo tcati}
>or {lo ckafi}. There are many other answers that could describe
>the contents without telling you whether they're tea or coffee.

So we are trying simultaneously for a) brevity b)to claim that one
of the two liquids and only one is present and c) insist that the listener
answer with the identity of the liquid and no tricky or evasive answers.
This sounds less of a Lojban problem, and more of a wordplay problem.
My last try:

ma du lu'a lo tcati onai lo ckafi lu'u poi se vasru le patxu
what is the identity of [tea XOR coffee] which is contained in the pot.

That was the other, later, use of lu'a - to allow grouped sumti to
be labelled with a relative clause.  The earliest use, though was defined
for lu'i alone, and was specifically to allow selection of a number
of members from a set, such as the "Would you like coffee, tea, milk, or water?"
without requiring impossibly complex connective statements  (pc determined
that while the logical connectives cover all truth table possibilities with
2 elelments, with 3 or more elelments, there are truth table possibilities
that cannot be expressed using simple connectives, and oftentimes even the
most obvious natlang choices are obscure when expressed as truth-connectives
-itr was easier to find a non-connect9ive approach).

lojbab
----
lojbab                                                lojbab@access.digex.net
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
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