From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Mon Jun 06 07:45:48 2005 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Mon, 06 Jun 2005 07:45:51 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.50) id 1DfIrA-00022Y-SR for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Mon, 06 Jun 2005 07:45:37 -0700 Received: from web81305.mail.yahoo.com ([206.190.37.80]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.50) id 1DfIr6-00022N-4e for lojban-list@lojban.org; Mon, 06 Jun 2005 07:45:36 -0700 Message-ID: <20050606144530.43007.qmail@web81305.mail.yahoo.com> Received: from [66.143.141.196] by web81305.mail.yahoo.com via HTTP; Mon, 06 Jun 2005 07:45:30 PDT Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 07:45:30 -0700 (PDT) From: John E Clifford Subject: [lojban] Re: How to say "depends"? To: lojban-list@lojban.org In-Reply-To: 6667 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Spam-Score: -2.6 (--) X-archive-position: 10110 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: clifford-j@sbcglobal.net Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list --- Opi Lauma wrote: > > That depends (heh). Which English meaning are > you > trying to > > capture? > > At first I am trying to capture usual > mathematical > meaning. For example if y=sin(x) then y > "depends" on > x. However, I doubt about {fancu} again since > in its > definition there is no explicit place for > argument x: > > x1 is a function/single-valued mapping > from domain x2 > to range x3 > defined by expression/rule x4 > > If I correctly understand x2 is not argument of > function but range of its definition, i.e. for > the > case of sinus it should be {-Infinity, > Infinity}. I *think* that "range" here is used in the technical sense as the set to which all the values belong. So also "domain" for arguments. In the case of sinus, the set is the whole real field and the domain is all possible angles (? trigonometry is a long way into my past). It > is also not clear how to emphasize that there > are > several arguments in function. This is trickier; Lojban should have a way of giving order n-tuples by specifying the domains of the various places, but I can't find or remember it right now. Maybe just conjunction with {ce,o}. > > Than I would like to use the mathematical > meaning of > "depends" for common life. For example to say > that > "Character depends on education". This is, with respect to {fancu}, a metaphorical extension and possibly not a good one (does one kind even of education always yield the same kind of character?). "Cause" ({rinka} at least) doesn't work either and "affect" (had we a good word for it -- {xlura} goes in the wrong direction) is probably weaker than you want. There are only positive correlations and Lojban is a bit weak on such notions (oddly, since the original founder was a social scientist).