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Message-Id: <m0jgI4q-0001taC@snark.thyrsus.com>
From: cowan (John Cowan)
Subject: Re: What binxo means
To: lojban-list
Date: Thu, 23 May 91 11:59:47 EDT
In-Reply-To: <9105221903.AA12264@whistler.pic.ucla.edu>; from "pic.ucla.edu!jimc" at May 22, 91 12:03 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.2 PL13]
Status: RO
X-From-Space-Date: Thu May 23 12:00:31 1991
X-From-Space-Address: cowan

la djim. kartr. cusku di'e:
> Let's translate "my rat
> died" using the interpretation of binxo that John Cowan gave, with a 
> backmap of what this really means in its full glory:
> 
>   lemi ratcu cu binxo lo morsi
>   At present my (present) rat is identical to at least one small stiff,
>   but formerly there was no stiff that my (former) rat was identical to.
...
> [T]he meaning "become"
> *ought* to be rendered with a predicate analogously to "la banthas.
> mlatu".  However, I see no gismu with a more suitable set of arguments
> than binxo.  

I see the force of your objection.  "x1 becomes x2" has the difficulty
that x1 should still be self-identical after the change, and what are we
to do with "la xeris. binxo la selis."?  Does this really mean that Harry
becomes Sally?

I think my main difficulty results from your loose terminology w.r.t. events
and predications.  I take only the latter to have truth value.

	Nixon died in 1968.

is a predication, and has a truth value (false), whereas

	the event of Nixon's dying in 1968

is an event.  This event did not happen, but that does not make it >false<.
Therefore your "x1 changes so that event x2 is true" should be rewritten as
"x1 changes so that property x2 (a one-place predicate) is true of it".

This can be readily represented in Lojban.  The abstractor "du'u", grammatically
parallel to "nu", has the meaning "sentence/predication of":

	mi pu cusku le du'u la xeris. morsi
	I (past) express the predication-of Harry is-dead.
	I said that Harry was dead.

So under this interpretation of the "binxo" place structure, "my rat died" is:

	lemi ratcu binxo le du'u morsi
	my rat changes-so-that the predication-of (it)-is-dead is true

where the x1 place of "morsi" is elliptically the rat.

Of course, this is not official LLG doctrine.  :-)

-- 
cowan@snark.thyrsus.com		...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban