From jjllambias@hotmail.com Wed Mar 1 10:45:04 2000 X-Digest-Num: 380 Message-ID: <44114.380.2114.959273826@eGroups.com> Date: Wed, 01 Mar 2000 10:45:04 PST From: "Jorge Llambias" Subject: Re: Use and abuse of sets la lojbab cusku di'e >Example: your "chief of mass" - >masses being amorphous and not having members, it doesn't seem to make >sense that they can have a chief member. Of course masses do have members. Each of the members of {lei broda} is a {le broda}. Each of ko'a and ko'e is a member of the mass ko'a joi ko'e. Call them "components" if you don't like "members", it doesn't matter. If it doesn't have members, or components, it makes no sense calling it a mass, it is just an ordinary entity. The only thing that makes it a mass is its composition. >I'll look again, but I am basing my argument on the original discussions >that brought these into the language, and not so much on JCB's last word, >which resulted in dissent. I was describing the current state of Loglan. That is the one I like, not the original confusion. > > >Prior to that they had no equivalent to "lo" > > > >They still don't, they use "ne" (Lojban {pa}). > >It is not clear to me that their indefinites are veridical. I don't know what you mean. They don't have our "lo", and they use "ne" where we use "lo". That is all I am saying. > > We don't really have anything quite like > >their "lo", which is not really very well defined anyway. > >It has been well-defined several times, with some degree of >self-contradiction. I base my claim on the classic definition. Could you quote the classic definition? I base my claims on the current state of the language. >All the >stuff that has happened in recent years has been JCB trying to work out the >impossible contradiction of that classic definition. I thought you just said it was well-defined at some point. Was it well-defined or impossibly contradictory? >The result is that >the definition that was clear (and corresponded to our loi, except for one >example) is less well-defined. I am totally confused. >You seem to be observing the muddle that resulted from their trying to >solve problems and figure out how to use the concepts in recent years >without having anyone able to point out the problems. No, I'm observing that they solved the problems quite well. I observe that they sorted out the initial muddle. We also sorted it out, more or less, and came to pretty much the same state, except for the names we use, since we call "mass" what they call "set". Other than that, the two languages have converged to pretty much the same state. The main difference being the additional Lojban set articles that I see as unnecessary. > >I like the final state of the Loglan articles better than > >the Lojban one. Fortunately the Lojban system can evolve > >painlessly and naturally to the Loglan one if it proves > >to be better. > >It isn't and it won't. Because you say so? The evolution I envision is one of usage. As people get more of a feeling for the language I expect them to realize the pointlessness of having the set articles along with the mass articles and just stop using them. Why make things complicated when there is no need? I may be wrong, of course. Only time will tell. > > >TLI Loglan has no cmavo for most of the needed MEX structures. > > > >Aren't they lucky! > > > >What do you mean by "needed"? They are not used in Lojban yet, > >so it must be a theoretical need. > >It is a need specified in JCB's vision of the language. Ok, not a real need then. I respect JCB's vivion very much, but one thing is his vision and another the actual language. >He actually had a >MEX in 1962, but threw it out when it a) proved less than adequate and b) >would not YACC. Of course it is a theoretical need. Much of Loglan is >purely theoretical. We cannot know what speakers of a logical language >will need. One way to start to know is to look at what speakers of the logical language Lojban are using and not using. >But the fact is that mathematicians do talk about mathematics >and read off mathematical expressions, and the current English way of >reading mathematical expressions is grammatically ambiguous. And the proposed Lojban way of reading mathematical expressions is hoplessly inadequate for mathematicians and hoplessly complicated for everyday use. You cannot use the Lojban MEX grammar to read mathematical expressions of moderate complexity, only the most basic ones, and those you can also read easily with the regular part of the grammar. I don't see any reason to provide mathematicians with their jargon words plus a complete secluded subset of the grammar, especially since it won't be of any use to them. >"Four score and seven years ago" was one phrase that required MEX >consideration. {puza lo nanca be vo lo renomei ku joi lo zemei} or something equally baroque. I doubt the point of MEX was to mimic archaic English expressions anyway. I think more thought should have been given to the "ago" in that expression rather than to the "four score and seven". It is much more important to the logicality of the grammar. >MEX = "mathematical expressions" The problem is the expression in language >of that peculiar symbology that we call mathematical notation. Most of MEX >may have little use outside of that domain, but it was a problem that JCB >identified early on as being of interest, was of early interest to >Loglanists (I think it was also discussed in the first issue of The >Loglanist, but surely one of the first few; the first assistant editor, >Mengarini, considered MEX the most interesting problem). I am not disputing the historical facts! All I'm saying is that MEX is not being used and hoping it won't be. The little language intuition I have developed by using the language tells me it is an ugly adiposity. Maybe others will feel differently. >Not all of the language is used to handle problems that occur in everyday >English, or any natlang conversation. My point is that the parts of the grammar that are not used in everyday conversation don't really belong in the language. Of course a lot of specialized vocabulary is not used in everyday language, but specialized grammar? What language has a specialized grammar for technical fields? >Loglan was always intended to go >beyond that in potential. (How often to we use some of the obscure logical >connectives, yet these seem quintessential Loglan?) All four connectives are used in conversation. I would say e, a, u, o is their order of frequency. co'o mi'e xorxes ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com