From nobody@digitalkingdom.org Sat May 06 14:52:17 2006 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Sat, 06 May 2006 14:52:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from nobody by chain.digitalkingdom.org with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FcUgy-0002ez-6N for lojban-list-real@lojban.org; Sat, 06 May 2006 14:52:00 -0700 Received: from web81309.mail.mud.yahoo.com ([68.142.199.125]) by chain.digitalkingdom.org with smtp (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1FcUgx-0002eq-2o for lojban-list@lojban.org; Sat, 06 May 2006 14:51:59 -0700 Received: (qmail 27010 invoked by uid 60001); 6 May 2006 21:51:57 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=sbcglobal.net; h=Message-ID:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:In-Reply-To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding; b=bDXe9+peLHwyen43oxr5Ry16cLX8DiDgaYTG38TsfVuWjmohqEKnDVYuqaYSCxf22MeRnYisXm2zTC8K7p4Bb/dSi6wvSWipSyz6+NcGhUMX2dhwFeo4+2L36n2to7M/QI0IbLhmimrfVSZ1mA/XC3Ces/qfzcQMIKwH2jTT9lQ= ; Message-ID: <20060506215157.27008.qmail@web81309.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Received: from [70.230.152.10] by web81309.mail.mud.yahoo.com via HTTP; Sat, 06 May 2006 14:51:57 PDT Date: Sat, 6 May 2006 14:51:57 -0700 (PDT) From: John E Clifford Subject: [lojban] Re: ralju bangu be le gligu'e To: lojban-list@lojban.org In-Reply-To: <925d17560605050746k9075a41wec53b8772a6b3cb8@mail.gmail.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Spam-Score: -0.6 (/) X-archive-position: 11413 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 We are in danger of talking past eachother and getting off topic (now, there's a novelty!). But I do want to start a bit to one side. In FOPL a sentence divides first of all into a predicate (however complex) and its arguments (however many). A Lojban bridi does the same (see definition of {bridi}). In both cases, the arguments are all on the same level (a bridi is true if the sequence of referents of its arguments is in the referent of its predicate, or so). In the grammar, however, arguments get chopped up any which way, depending on where they occur linearly with respect to the predicate: aPbcd is [a][Pbcd], Pabcd is [P][abcd], abPcd is [ab][Pcd]and so on. Only in the one case do the arguments form an immediate constituent of the sentence and are all on the same level. In the other cases, they are at different levels because distributed over different components. So, for starters, even if Lojban gets logic right, the Lojban grammar gets Lojban -- and logic -- wrong at the very first step. Lojban parses, in other words, do not give relaiable information about the structure of the utterance; at best they accept all and only legitimate utterances of Lojban for some different reasons. You can say that his problem is easy to get around in analysing sentences; we deal with much worse things in English, for example. But, if we equate the structures given by the parser with the actual structures in the language (and this something we are almost forced to do, since we have no other standard -- barring our intuitions), then we get farther and farther away from FOPL -- and, if we believe the PR, from real Lojban. Now to the case in point. {ralju bangu be le gligu'e}. It is a bridi minus one argument (I assume this is pulled out of {lo ...} or so), so it ought to divide [ralj bangu] (the predicate/selbri) and [- (be) le gligu'e] (the arguments)(the dash is for the term bound up in {lo} or whatever). It does instead break into [ralju][bangu be le gligu'e], where now the predicate is broken up as well as the arguments (this is all a portion matched by the missing first argument of the selbri). Now, to be sure, this grouping could make sense, but it is for a derivative structure, not the primary one, pred+arg. In this structure, the argument to {bangu} really is at a different (subordinate) level, down two in Lojban so at leat one in logic (given the at logical same level is doen one in Lojban). The Lojban that would give this structure without a doubt is {ralju be lo bangu be le glicu'e}. Now, given the indefiniteness of sources for tanru, this might be a source for {ralju bangu} but it would be a surprising one. We would expect {bangu ralju} on the "lion hunter" model, where the missing x1 as a kind of ralju -- as in the long form, rather than a kind of bangu, as in the tanru. (To be sure, the missing x1 IS a knd of bangu, but that is inferential from the way that [ralju} works, not sometyhing said in the form alone.) Since the form we have is not br but rb, we are justified (even if ultimately wrong) to take it that it has a different source. the obvious one is a "white hunter" tanru "x is a language of y and x is a principal one among the languages of y", x([rb]y) rather than x(r[by]). This interpretation makes the expression explainable under the same rules as are applied with the simple xPy case, whereas the other requires a new rule which is nowhere motivated in the expression itself, contrary to the general principle that deviations from the norm should be marked and the norm unmarked (this latter being violated as well, since, in Lojban, the simple case requires additional marks). So, my point that Lojban does a lousy job of representing logic comes down to a couple of possibilities when illustrated by this case: 1) the analysis that the grammar gives is what was intended, in which case the principle about marking is violated as is the simple rule for arguments at the same depth ({le glicu'e} appears to be at the same depth as the missing x1 but is, in fact, at least one level lower) and the definition of "truth" has to be suitably modified (despite appearances this is the bear structure of a one place predicate, rather than a two place predicate with one place filled). 2) On the other hand, if what is meant is the two-place relation "is the principal language of," as appears from the surface structure, then the grammar's analysis is a total miss -- or, I suppose, requires yet another set of rules to get back to what was meant in the first place. In either way, the transparent connection between bridi and proposition is even more complicatedx than it was in the simple cases. To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to lojban-list-request@lojban.org with the subject unsubscribe, or go to http://www.lojban.org/lsg2/, or if you're really stuck, send mail to secretary@lojban.org for help.