From mark@kli.org Thu Sep 2 11:18:24 1999
X-Digest-Num: 229
Message-ID: <44114.229.1255.959273825@eGroups.com>
Date: 2 Sep 1999 18:18:24 -0000
From: mark@kli.org
Subject: Variables and connectives.

I was thinking about something today, something actually not hard to say in
Lojban, but it got me pondering some stuff about variables and connectives
and whatnot. Probably nothing hard to answer, but I wasn't sure.

I started off on this line of thought with the sentence "we have the same
name" (I happened to see a man walking past wearing a necklace with the
name "Mark" on it). There are a few unrelated ponderings I have on it, so
the presentation might be disjointed.

I figure I could avoid weird tanru and whatever by simply saying {da cmene
mi .e do}. OK, digression: the connective. I can't use {mi'o} since
that's equivalent to {mi joi do} which would mean that there's something
that names us as a mass. Just like {la djan. joi la djim. bevri le pipno}
means that Djan and Djim carry the piano jointly, acting as a team, massed
together, {da cmene mi joi do} would have to mean that there's a name for
the mass of I/we and you (us'ns and yous'ns). Maybe we form a famous team
or something. For all that I use {jo'u} sometimes, I'm not always positive
just how it differs from {.e}. I suppose {da cmene mi jo'u do} would mean
that there's a name that applies to each of us individually, but only when
we're somehow considered together or something weird. Maybe something like
"Half the Dynamic Duo" would be such a name. So back to {.e}, which I'm
nearly certain is the right connective here (even though I've discovered
that sumti logical connectives are actually Right less often than we
think). End digression. Note that {da cmene mi .e do} is equivalent to
{da cmene mi .ije da cmene do}. What I wasn't sure about, but which I
think has already been considered and is well-known, is whether the scope
works like I think it does. That is, in {da cmene mi .ije da cmene do} am
I in fact asserting that we're dealing with the *same* da in both
sentences? I think so; I thought bound variables had a fairly long scope,
till they were rebound or at least until {ni'o} or something. If not, all
I'm asserting is that both you and I have names.

I think this business about expanding logical connectives into conjoined
sentences is part of what makes me a little unsure about the LAhE/LUhE
bracketing for attaching relative phrases/clauses to complex sumti, which
is what prompted me to ask (and which question nobody answered. Hello?)
Even if I did get confused and thought you'd need a {ro} quantifier.

Anyone?

~mark