Re: Lojban ML: Syllogism and sophism

["Jorge J. Llambías" <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>]

Lojbab:
>>>But to me it is NOT The object that has the properties in ka, but the
>>>relationship between ALL the objects that has the properties.
 >>
>>        la djan ckaji le ka ce'u blanu
 >
>Bad example since blanu has only one place.

Change it to:

        la djan ckaji le ka ce'u melbi
        John has the property of being beautiful.

        la djan cenba le ka ce'u melbi
        John changes in the property of being beautiful.

Same thing applies: the x1 is the holder of property x2.

>But x1 need not be a concrete.

Of course it need not be a concrete!
That doesn't mean that it cannot be one.

>lenu binxo cu ckaji leka ce'u temci cortu

{temci tordu}, or {temci toltce}, yes.

>But in any case you are correct - IF you put a ce'u into a ka abstraction
>then obviously that abstraction is describing the properties of something
>that fills that ce'u place.  But my concept of ka abstractions is that this
>is an application, and not the basic nature of ka.

So the basic nature of ka is not as a {se ckaji}?

 >lo ka melbi = Beauty
>Beauty is a concept that stands on its own independent of specific objects
>that may be characterized by beauty.  And Beauty is as much dependent on an
>aesthetic standard as it is on having an object that is beautiful as it is
>on having a beholder.

Perhaps an example would help. Of course {le ka ce'u melbi}, the
property of being beautiful, also depends on the {se melbi} and the
{te melbi}, so saying that Beauty depends on them doesn't
help much to differentiate them.

>lo ka klama is a different universal - Motion and in particular  Motion
>that starts somewhere and ends somewhere else via particular route(s).

Sounds like {le ka ce'uxipa muvdu ce'uxire ce'uxici ce'uxivo}, or
{le ka muvdu} for short.

 >>Are you thinking of {ce'u} in all places of djuno? If so, "relationship"
>>might be a better word for it than "properties".
>
>Maybe so, when all places are filled by ce'u - I gues that is what a bare
>selbri is absent context.

Right. I can understand that one.

>But I am referring to what happens when all
>place are filled byspecifics and none is a ce'u.

John said once that that made {ka} equivalent to {du'u}, which
sounds right to me.

 >If la djan binxo la djim
>by some strabge mechanism, we would not normally say that
>either la djan or la djim cu cenba

    la djan cu cenba le ka makau cmene ce'u
    John changes in what is his name.

>because it is not clear that any particular property changed
>There was something more akin to replacement.

You mean that John's soul took over Jim's body, or something
like that? Then perhaps:

     la djan cu cenba le ka makau xadni ce'u
     John changes in what is his body.

>My problem is partially that though - if A binxo B, is it A cenba or
>B cenba.

Both.

> In a time free sense it seems that both would have to be true,
>even if B is a final state and will no longer change.

Why time free? B may have changed from not existing to existing, so:

        by cenba le ka ce'u zasti
        B changed in the property of existing.

>In my mind, a scale needs units and a property being measured (not a thing
>- things aren't measured, but rather it is properties of the thing that are
>measured).

In English, things certainly are measured. And I hope in Lojban things
can be se merli as well.

For example in English you can say:

        Please measure this box for me. I need to know its height, its
        width and its depth.

In that case, measuring the box requires to measure three of its
properties. I hope this doesn't derive in a discussion of the English
verb "to measure". I swear that I have often heard it used with things
as the object.

Now, in Lojban we might say:

        e'o do merli le vi tanxe ma le ka mitre fi le ci cimde
        Please, what do you measure this box to be in a scale of meters
        along each of the three dimensions?

 >>        le ka la djan blanu cu cenba le ka la djan blanu do'ekaumakau
>>
>>le se cenba is not a property of le cenba. That does not agree with
>>the use of {cenba} in the refgram examples.
>  I couldn't find cenba in the index, so I don't know what examples you
were
>referring to.

The ones in page 261: {le pixra cu cenba le ka/ni ce'u blanu}.

They have a thing as {le cenba} and a property of the thing as {le se
cenba}.

> But unless there is an example with commentary on the places
>it will be hard to know what the refgrammar is saying or implying (if
anything).

 I don't believe that it's hard at all in this case.

>For the mopst part the refgrammar is NOT attempting to prescribe meaning or
>usage of various brivla, though it may have  that effect if a comment
>indicates that a praticular meaning is presumed in order to elicit the
>indicated grammatical effect.

If those examples are so wrong (I don't think they are) then we should
be aware of it so as to correct them in future editions or whenever an
errata is made. But the only way I can make sense of {cenba} is if
{le cenba} is a holder of {le se cenba} property. How can something
vary in a property it does not possess?

 co'o mi'e xorxes