From cbmvax!uunet!CUVMA.BITNET!LOJBAN Wed Jan 29 14:19:05 1992 Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Wed, 29 Jan 92 14:18 EST Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA15650; Wed, 29 Jan 92 14:16:18 EST Received: from cunixf.cc.columbia.edu by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA01560; Wed, 29 Jan 92 13:41:59 -0500 Received: from cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu by cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (5.59/FCB) id AA19756; Wed, 29 Jan 92 13:41:50 EST Message-Id: <9201291841.AA19756@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU (IBM VM SMTP R1.2.1) with BSMTP id 8846; Wed, 29 Jan 92 13:39:36 EST Received: by CUVMB (Mailer R2.07) id 2187; Wed, 29 Jan 92 13:39:13 EST Date: Wed, 29 Jan 1992 13:01:37 EST Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Plurals, sets, masses, sequences -- decisions on the weekend X-To: Lojban List To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann Status: RO la lojbab. has asked me to write up what was decided during my visit to Lojban Central on these issues. One of the aims of the place structure review was to examine all the place structures that were labeled "(plural/set)" to see whether an actual set was wanted, or merely one or more individuals. In addition, sometimes a mass seemed to be the right thing. The new place structures which lojbab is typing up will contain a good deal of clarification. Essentially, a true set is required if the relationship does not hold of each member but only of the totality. For example, "kampu", "cnano", and "fadni" are all relationships between a set and one of its members (or a property thereof). If I am typical of the set of persons, that does not mean that the relation "typical-of" holds between me and every individual person -- indeed, the idea of one person being typical of another makes no sense. On the other hand, we decided that "casnu" should have a mass, rather than either a set or plural individuals, in its x1 place. People may "casnu", or participate in a discussion, even though not all of them say anything. In many cases, "(plural/set)" came up where "between" or "among" was involved. Most of these we tried to reword to avoid the problem, which often resulted from excess generality. Thus a wall now separates exactly two things, and a door connects exactly two. (A wall may separate multiple pairs of things -- my house from yours, my property from yours, Country 1 from Country 2 -- all at once, but the relationship is still pairwise.) In addition, the phrase "ordered set" was changed throughout to "sequence", and the place structure of "porsi" is now something like "x1 is a sequence of the members of set x2 ordered by rules x3". Sequences do not have the same level of support in Lojban as individuals, masses, and sets; however, we have long had the non-logical connective "ce'o" which constructs them item by item. In addition, we added "vu'i", a converter of selma'o LUhI, transforming a set into a sequence, as well as individuals into a sequence-in-extension. It now seems that "fa'u", the non-logical connective for "respectively", may be taken to generate a sequence-in-extension, thus: mi fa'u do se cmene la djan. fa'u la lojbab. I respectively-with you is-benamed John respectively-with Lojbab. Using ".e" connection will not do, as that means that each of us is named both John and Lojbab. -- cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban