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From: scope845hlang343jbo@icebubble.org
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Subject: [lojban] Reasoning by analogy
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2020 03:04:28 +0000
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As imprecise human beings saddled with the inheritance of natural
language, much of what we say involves reasoning by analogy.  For
example:

  "You can learn to walk on your hands just like you learn to walk on
   your feet."

How would you express such a notion in Lojban?  The English suggests
that the method of learning (perhaps {ta'i} or {xelcli}) is the same in
both instances, but there is also an implication: IF you can learn to
walk on your feet, THEN you can also learn to walk on your hands.  In
Lojban, I might render this:

  do cilre fi lonu do cadzu fi lei do jamfu kei ku fu da
  .inaja do cilre fi lonu do cadzu fi lei do xance kei ku fu da

or even

  ta'i da do cilre fi lonu do cadzu fi lei do jamfu
  .inaja ta'i da do cilre fi lonu do cadzu fi lei do xance

But that only works if there happens to be a FA place or BAI cmavo that
expresses the common property of the analogy (in this case, the method
of learning).  And it requires that I express that property explicitly.
In some instances, there might not be a BAI cmavo, or a {FIhO SE BRODA}
tag, suitable to express it.  Or, I might just want to elide the
relationship, and leave the relationship implicit.  I could use {do'e}:

  do'e da do cilre fi lonu do cadzu fi lei do jamfu
  .inaja do'e da do cilre fi lonu do cadzu fi lei do xance

But this still strikes me as kind of clumsy.  Is there a neater way to
express reasoning by analogy, like this, in Lojban?

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