From cbmvax!uunet!CUVMB.BITNET!LOJBAN Fri Jul 10 14:44:33 1992 Return-Path: Received: by snark.thyrsus.com (/\==/\ Smail3.1.21.1 #21.19) id ; Fri, 10 Jul 92 14:44 EDT Received: by cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com (5.57/UUCP-Project/Commodore 2/8/91) id AA10859; Fri, 10 Jul 92 11:10:43 EDT Received: from pucc.Princeton.EDU by relay1.UU.NET with SMTP (5.61/UUNET-internet-primary) id AA00991; Fri, 10 Jul 92 10:34:50 -0400 Message-Id: <9207101434.AA00991@relay1.UU.NET> Received: from PUCC.PRINCETON.EDU by pucc.Princeton.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1231; Fri, 10 Jul 92 10:00:56 EDT Received: by PUCC (Mailer R2.08 ptf034) id 8919; Fri, 10 Jul 92 10:00:36 EDT Date: Fri, 10 Jul 1992 14:00:38 BST Reply-To: cbmvax!uunet!oasis.icl.co.uk!I.Alexander.bra0122 Sender: Lojban list From: cbmvax!uunet!OASIS.ICL.CO.UK!I.Alexander.bra0122 Subject: RE: Relatives and Quantifiers X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan , Eric Raymond , Eric Tiedemann Status: RO I've got kind of mixed feelings about this, Colin. First of all, let me point out that the latest Diagrammed Grammar Summary appears to support one of your proposals. At the bottom of page 19, it describes a "description sumti" as [number] le [number] [sumti] [modal] selbri [ku] which is your solution (c) to problem 2. I've put that up front so that LLG have chance to notice it and comment whether it's a typo. In general, however: there is no rule that says that the deep(er) structure of a language (natural, artificial, computer, whatever) has to correspond to the surface structure. (This is obvious, isn't it.) On the other hand, it is kind of nice if it does, particularly if it's easy. This is particularly true when you've got people like myself who have access to the grammar definition, which gives the syntax, but tells you essentially nothing about the semantics of any given construction. Some of it we intuit from the corresponding English language construction - we are after all still a predominantly English- language group - but this is in itself dangerous. Many of the discussions I've seen or been involved in recently (and some I've never started, because I saw what was going on in time) have been a result of confusing an English gloss for a Lojban definition - mainly of gismu rather than grammar rules, but then there are more of the former, and the negation inside / outside quantifier discussion is a good example of grammar or meta-grammar. There's a lot of stuff in the language which needs careful definition, which is a lot of work, and it's not even obvious how you can best present some of it. The discursive papers are good, but they only tell you what they tell you; they're good to read through, but not ideal reference material. In any case, I think I'm saying that although your concerns are theoretically unimportant, in practical terms they are extremely reasonable, and I am in favour of any such rationalisation which makes it easier to get to grips with the grammar - I would need to read it all through again before committing myself to any of your particular solutions. But this is coupled with a warning that much of the grammar, possibly even including this part after your improvements, needs semantic clarification, and we as a group need to find some way of handling this.