From cbmvax!uunet!math.ucla.edu!jimc Mon Aug 12 13:51:06 1991 Return-Path: From: cbmvax!uunet!math.ucla.edu!jimc Return-Path: Message-Id: <9108121715.AA11673@njoshua.math.ucla.edu> To: lojban-list@snark.thyrsus.com Cc: nsn@ee.mu.oz.au Subject: Re: Some cmavo comments, if y'all please. In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 12 Aug 91 18:32:23 +1000." <9108120832.AA05595@munagin.ee.mu.OZ.AU> Date: Mon, 12 Aug 91 10:15:02 -0700 Status: RO jimc's snide asides on nsn's comments... > My comments on the cmavo list, Bob's countercomments, and my snide asides, > open for evaluation by the community: > > >>>fa'e BAI > >la djim. kartr fa'e jimpe le lojbau platu > >Jim Carter has the Lojban design arse-backwards. In my opinion, this sentence is an exemplary use of fa'e specifically, and of a miscellaneous tense in general. Of course I agree only with the form, not the content :-) The English colorful metaphor I'm familiar with is "bass-ackwards". I assume Lojbab meant "lojban" rather than "lojbau". I suggest interpreting X2 as a transitive diktanru, i.e. specifically as "le platu be loi lojban", rather than as a creative metaphor: "le platu be zo'e -- the word "lojban" may give you a clue what it's a plan of". I don't think anybody actually answered so why don't I do the honors of pedantry. "X1 jimpe X2" is a relation. "X1 jimpe X2 pu P3" means that the relation includes a time of validity (not a numbered place) which is before P3. "X1 pu jimpe X2" means the same except P3 is replaced by the prevailing tense reference point (typically present time). "X1 jimpe X2 fa'e P3" means that the relation of understanding is reverse from P3; presumably both P3 and the main bridi can be interpreted directionally. In a motion word "reverse" is easily interpreted but it takes some creative thinking when jimpe - understand is the selbri; hence the bogus connection to tanru. "X1 fa'e jimpe X2", finally, means the understanding is reverse from some default reference, presumably what "everyone" knows. This perfectly translates the English idiom "arse-backwards". > ... the one that doesn't do anything BAIish (music pi'o la betoven, > pu'a la betoven, du'i la betoven, cu'u la betoven.... fa'e la betoven?! And > this is not spurious: I defy anybody out there to use fa'e as a sumti tcita > in a nonstupid way. Some (not all) modern music sounds to me "fa'e la betoven", backwards from everything Beethoven stands for. Of course this is cheating; it's the reverse of Beehoven's music, not of Beethoven the human. So writing out the sumti in full, I get: lo zgike be fa'e loi zgike be la betoven (really) music backwards (mass) music of Beethoven > >>>fa'u JOI > >>Essay please. How does this differ from {.e} or {jo'u}? > >Well .e is a logical connective and this isn't. My cmavo list says fa'u means "scalar product", which I interpreted as (a b c) fa'u (x y z) = (a*x + b*y + c*z). Sounds like a MEX, doesn't it? I think some clear examples of intended use are needed for this. My list shows pi'u as "Cartesian product", sometimes also called cross product though to me "cross product" means the 3-D Grassman product of a 1-form and a 2-form (as in JxB). Certainly the Cartesian product is a product form we use a lot, although it's hard for me to figure out how precisely to use pi'u to represent it. > >>>ne'a FAhA next to location tense relation/direction; > next to ... ; direction modal > >>>ne'e FAhA edged by location tense relation/direction; > edged by ... ; direction modal > >>>ne'i FAhA within location tense relation/direction; > within/inside of ... ; direction modal > >>>ne'o FAhA adjacent to location tense relation/direction; > adjacent to/touching ... ; direction modal > >>>ne'u FAhA away from point location tense relation/direction; > directly away from specified point ... ; direction modal > > >>Again, too close. This is not a distinctive cv'x family. Actually I don't see these as at all close. ne'a Next to Next in an ordering, or even physically touching ne'e Bordered by This is one of the key relations in differential geometry; and the border of X is actually a different class of object than X (one less dimension). ne'i Within Container and contents, clearly differs from all others. ne'o Adjacent to Closest to ne'a, but means the distance to Y is small, not necessarily negligible. ne'u Away from point It's impossible to derive towards/away from any of the others. > As Jim'll tell you, give the defining gismu explicitly, whether they match > the form of the FAhA or not. Right on. -- jimc