From rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org Wed Nov 10 11:49:02 2004 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Wed, 10 Nov 2004 11:49:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from rlpowell by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.34) id 1CRySc-0003ln-2P for lojban-list@lojban.org; Wed, 10 Nov 2004 11:48:54 -0800 Date: Wed, 10 Nov 2004 11:48:54 -0800 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: Questions about the Magic Words Message-ID: <20041110194854.GJ4965@chain.digitalkingdom.org> Mail-Followup-To: lojban-list@lojban.org References: <87828601-324C-11D9-9684-000D9329C984@online.fr> <20041109191734.GZ20718@chain.digitalkingdom.org> <224FA74B-333C-11D9-A488-000D9329C984@online.fr> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <224FA74B-333C-11D9-A488-000D9329C984@online.fr> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.6+20040722i From: Robin Lee Powell X-archive-position: 8973 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list On Wed, Nov 10, 2004 at 06:15:35PM +0100, Rapha?l Poss wrote: > > Le 9 nov. 04, ? 20:17, Robin Lee Powell a ?crit : > > >On Tue, Nov 09, 2004 at 01:40:25PM +0100, Rapha?l Poss wrote: > >>I am now reading the Magic Words wiki page, and it actually > >>challenges what I thought I previously knew about the lojban > >>grammar. > > > >I bet. Please note that xorxes and I are discussing a completely > >different version, as well. > > Ah. Is it on the wiki ? Yep. Linked from my version, but you can also use this link: http://www.lojban.org/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=Magic+Words%3A+left-to-right > >I would like to know how hard you think it would be to memorize > >the rules as I've listed them. > > *I* for one think the rules themselves are sufficiently simple to > be learned easily, *but* : > > - the phrasing is poor and/or too complex, Specific examples will help. > - it raises implicitely a lot of questions about special cases, > which should be provided for illustration beneath the rules. I was hoping I had already done that. > >>I would very much appreciate if someone could enlighten me on > >>the following points : > >> > >>1. "zo y bu == (zo bu) [one y ignored]" or "zo y bu == (zo (y > >>bu))" ? > > > >The former. If .y. wasn't ignored, the latter would be an error. > > Then for any of : > > zoi y bu ... bu > > zoi y bu Ah, crap. I had forgotten about this case. :-P > It is tempting to rephrase rule 1 as: > > - Y is always ignored after ZO or ZOI > > - Y is not ignored before BU > > - Y is ignored in all other cases > But then we have a problem: > > zoi zoi ... zoi y bu > > Since the quoting is not done yet (at this point), It's not? Sure looks done to me. > >>2. is "broda lo'u brode fa'o" grammatical ? (can we assume that > >>fa'o closes all elidable terminators, even le'u ?) > > > >That's a parser design issue, really, but as it stands, no. Bear > >in mind that le'u is *NOT* an elidable terminator, in that it is > >not elidable. > > Therefore, since fa'o closes the input before the lo'u quoting is > done, the construct becomes ungrammatical. Umm, that construct is ungrammatical because input ends before the le'u. The following is fine: "broda lo'u broda fa'o le'u" > Now, wait, I can see that now fa'o can be quoted with lo'u (rule > 4, has it changed ?) > > So "broda lo'u brode fa'o le'u" is now grammatical. Exactly, but you didn't say that. > >>3. what remains after "zo y bu si" ? > > > >An unfilled zo. > > Given the current rule 1, I would say "zo y". (Y was not ignored > since BU happened just after). That's not how I read it, but I can see how you get that out of the rules. I'll have to fix that. > Point 8. > > what happens if the word after SA does not appear before at all > (never since the beginning of the text) ? Is the erasing > performed, or ignored ? What remains ? > > Especially, what remains after : > > - broda sa su > > - broda sa sa > > - broda su brode sa su > > - zo sa broda sa sa I'm of the opinion that erasers can erase SA, because going back to the previous SI, SA or SU makes no sense. I should put that in the rules. > Point 9. > > What remains after : > > pa zoi pa ... pa sa pa "pa" > (or, is the ZOI delimiter valid as a limit for "sa" ?) No. > Point 10. > > My current knowledge of lojban tells me that : > > la'e lu zo zo li'u > > means "the word 'zo'". Correct. > Since nothing prevents lo'u...le'u from quoting correct text, I > assume that "la'e lo'u zo zo le'u" has the same meaning. No. That's an error, because the first zo has no effect on the second zo, and the second one quotes le'u. As a side effect, this means that the last word in lo'u...le'u can't be zo. > Point 11. > > I see that ZOI is processed before ZO: > > "zo zoi ti ta ti == zo (zoi ti ta ti)" ? No, zo wins. zo and zoi are left-to-right with each other, I think. > Point 12. > > SA is processed after LOhU ... LEhU, so I would assume that when we > have : > > broda lo'u sa broda le'u > > nothing is erased. Correct. > Now, my example rephrasing for the rules: Those are pretty good. If I don't end up dropping everything for xorxes' version (which seems likely at this point) I'll use them. -Robin -- http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** http://www.lojban.org/ Reason #237 To Learn Lojban: "Homonyms: Their Grate!" Proud Supporter of the Singularity Institute - http://singinst.org/