From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sat Nov 10 23:48:38 2007 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-beginners); Sat, 10 Nov 2007 23:48:38 -0800 (PST) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1Ir7Yc-0004Vp-77 for lojban-beginners-real@lojban.org; Sat, 10 Nov 2007 23:48:38 -0800 Received: from squid17.laughingsquid.net ([72.32.93.144]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1Ir7Ya-0004Vf-6T for lojban-beginners@lojban.org; Sat, 10 Nov 2007 23:48:38 -0800 Received: (qmail 24633 invoked by uid 48); 10 Nov 2007 23:48:34 -0800 Received: from c-75-68-233-37.hsd1.vt.comcast.net (c-75-68-233-37.hsd1.vt.comcast.net [75.68.233.37]) by webmail.ixkey.info (Horde MIME library) with HTTP; Sat, 10 Nov 2007 23:48:34 -0800 Message-ID: <20071110234834.m8g7d2y4g0k8gcow@webmail.ixkey.info> Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2007 23:48:34 -0800 From: mungojelly@ixkey.info To: lojban-beginners@lojban.org Subject: [lojban-beginners] Re: If-then-else? References: <97f5058c0711071605k268bce95md1e86ee74a5b5069@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <97f5058c0711071605k268bce95md1e86ee74a5b5069@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; DelSp="Yes"; format="flowed" Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis User-Agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) H3 (4.1.4) X-Spam-Score: 0.0 X-Spam-Score-Int: 0 X-Spam-Bar: / X-archive-position: 5801 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-beginners-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: mungojelly@ixkey.info Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-beginners@lojban.org X-list: lojban-beginners Quoting Penguino : > What is the Lojban equivalent to if-then-else statements? My Lojban isn't very good yet so take my ideas with a grain of salt. :) Here's one way I thought of: .i ru'a broda (supposing broda) .i go'i seni'i/seri'a/etc lo nu brode (that would necessitate, or physically cause, etc, brode) .i na'e/na go'e seni'i/seri'a/etc lo nu brodi (other-than/not that would necessitate, or physically cause, etc, brodi) Basically as you are going along speaking Lojban there are various ways of packaging up ideas into bundles you can take along with you & establish various relationships between, including causal relationships. You can put anything imaginable, including potential events, into prosumti like "ko'a." So for instance you could say: .i mi se xanri lo nu broda kei goi ko'a I imagine an event of broda, which I'll call ko'a. You can then use that "ko'a" in sentences about causality, such as "rinka," or sentences about logical necessity, such as "nibli," or sentences about desires or anything else. .i ko'a ba rinka lo nu brode That (ko'a) would cause brode. It's usually even easier than assigning something to ko'a-- you can refer to the last thing that started with any letter by the name of the letter, such as by cy dy, which usually easily disambiguates over the last few sentences, and there are also the particular hooks go'i and go'e which allow you easy access to propositions or assertions you've just made. So I think the real Lojbanic answer is that you don't have to do anything so simple as if-then-else. If you use Lojban well you can simultaneously refer to many different potential situations & their causal interconnections, and knit very complicated comprehensions of the order of the world. mi'e bret.