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Date: Wed, 22 May 2013 12:36:42 +0200
From: selpa'i <seladwa@gmx.de>
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Subject: Re: [lojban] Tags and bridi operators
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la .xorxes. cu cusku di'e
> On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 9:39 PM, selpa'i <seladwa@gmx.de
> <mailto:seladwa@gmx.de>> wrote:
>
>     We know that na(ku), quantifiers, connectives and tenses are bridi
>     operators, but what about non-tense tags? Some clearly are bridi
>     operators, for instance the causals:
>
>
> In general, tags for which the rest of the bridi is an argument of the
> tag's underlying selbri would be bridi operators. Those are also the
> easiest tags to come up with a clean definition for. Maybe all tags have
> to be defined that way.

I couldn't agree more. My approach is to treat every tag whose base 
selbri has a place for an abstraction as putting the main bridi into 
that abstraction place. For some other tags I don't see an easy way to 
define them, e.g. {bau}. Some of these tags don't seem to make much 
sense when looked at from a lojbanic point of view. That's why I 
proposed to change bangu3 into something that could take the main bridi.

Some tags can be defined in terms of {gi'e} I think, and for tags that 
really only apply to single sumti places I have an idea about semantic 
roles determining which sumti place to pick. (cf. e.g. {se kai})

>     Either we make every tag, no matter what selma'o it belongs to, a
>     bridi operator, or we pick some that are operators and some that
>     aren't depending on what is the most useful / easiest to use. The
>     problem with the second option is that it is a bit annoying to have
>     to memorize which tags are and which aren't bridi operators. On the
>     other hand, the problem with the first option is that it would
>     actually invalidate a lot of usage! For example, from The Little Prince:
>
>           (4) do pu djuno noda fi'o fuzme mi
>
>     The intended meaning is (more or less) "It's my fault that you
>     didn't know." However, if {fi'o fuzme} is treated like any other
>     tag, then the scope is wrong and the sentence suddenly means "In the
>     past, there was no thing such that: you know it because of me",
>     which is backwards from the intended meaning.
>
>
> Yes, it should have been "fi'o fuzme mi do pu djuno no da". It's a very
> common mistake with causals. For some reason we always tend to give them
> wide scope, even when used at the end of the sentence. Very common with
> "na ...  ki'u ..." for instance.
>
>     This is sad news. Should we say {tai} (or even {ja'e}) is not a
>     bridi operator and thus save the construction (and usage) or do we
>     need to update our usage? Both solutions have their pros and cons,
>     but in the long run, consistency seems more important.
>
>     I'd be particularly interested in xorxes' opinion.
>
>
> I guess it should be "ja'e ... tai ..." rather than "tai ... ja'e ...".

Right. Unfortunately it means that a lot of texts would need to be 
updated (mostly mine and yours I suppose, I don't know who else uses 
this construction), and it is also backwards from the way natlangs do 
it; putting {ja'e} first is somewhat anti-climactic. Maybe a scope 
jumper cmavo...

There is also the option of "broda be tai ... be'o ja'e ..." to give 
{tai} local scope as a last resort.

mu'o mi'e la selpa'i

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