From @uga.cc.uga.edu:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Mon Nov 30 07:44:24 1992 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Mon, 30 Nov 1992 12:12:18 -0500 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1615; Mon, 30 Nov 92 12:08:52 EST Received: from UGA.BITNET by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (Mailer R2.08 PTF008) with BSMTP id 5143; Mon, 30 Nov 92 12:08:51 EST Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1992 12:44:24 -0500 Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: The Distribution Problem: An Ambiguity? X-To: Lojban List To: Erik Rauch Status: RO X-Status: Message-ID: In the course of writing a paper on the structure of Lojban selbri (Jimbobs and old-timers will recognize the phrase "pretty little girls' school" as relevant), I have come across what I believe to be a fundamental ambiguity in the interpretation of certain complex tanru. This ambiguity was first pointed out to me by Iain Hamilton; I researched it in JCB's various publications on the subject and those of other Loglanists, and finally checked with lojbab and Nora. I conclude that the ambiguity is real and needs a resolution of some sort. Comments are urgently solicited. The simplest type of tanru that exposes the problem is "A je B C", an A-and-B type of C. Examples: 1) melbi je cmalu nixli pretty and little girl 2) cmalu je nixli ckule little and girl school 3) labno je remna dapma wolf and man curse werewolf curse Each of these tanru is susceptible of two different interpretations, which I call "distributive" and "non-distributive". In the distributive interpretation, "A je B C" means "(A B) je (A C)"; in the non-distributive interpretation, it means "C of type A-je-B". Example (1) probably prefers the distributive interpretation: a pretty and little girl is something which is both a pretty girl and a little girl. I call this "distributive" by analogy with the distributive law in mathematics, which tells us that (A + B) * C = (A * C) + (B * C). Indeed, it is hard to see a reasonable English sense for the non-distributive interpretation. Example (3), on the other hand, prefers the non-distributive interpretation. In this case, "A je B" is taken as a basic tanru which as a whole modifies C. "labno je remna" is a reasonable tanru for "werewolf"; it describes something which is both a human being and a wolf. (Etymologically, the "were-" part of the English word also means "remna", or perhaps "nanmu".) So a "werewolf curse" is not something which is both a wolf curse and a human curse, but rather a curse associated with something which is both a human being and a wolf. Example (2) can readily be read both ways. Is the school in question one which is both a little school and a girls' school, or is it one which is for creatures who are both little and girls? My historical investigation (Loglan 1, 3rd and 4th editions, plus the intervening issues of The Loglanist) establishes that JCB always takes the distributive interpretations. He understands "A je B C" as a mere abbreviation for "A C gi'e B C". For him (and a fortiori, for pc at the time in question), "A je B" as a stand-alone tanru is so-called "bad usage" (that is, permitted by the machine grammar but forbidden by a side constraint); he consistently uses "A gi'e B" in all such circumstances. Lojban does not have the concept "bad usage": what the machine grammar allows is grammatical tout court. pc does make the comment (TL4/1:49) that "X is a quick-if-red fox" is not the same as "X is a quick fox if X is a red fox" because the former asserts that X is a fox, whereas the latter is a mere implication that makes no such assertion. As long as we confine ourselves to "je" and "ja", however, this distinction is immaterial. When I spoke by telephone with Bob and Nora, their view (as best I understood it) was that the ambiguity was real but acceptable, given that only tanru are involved, tanru being inherently ambiguous. I disagree. My view is that ambiguities that involve >grouping< are not allowed in the language -- the purpose for "ke...ke'e" and "bo" mechanisms" -- and that the distributive vs. non-distributive distinction is, in fact, one of grouping. Iain Hamilton proposed a clever resolution based on Backus FP, which I regretfully reject as too unLojbanic. Nora suggested the use of "joi" to force the non-distributive reading (and "ku'a", set intersection, might serve the same purpose); unfortunately, there are 14 logical connectives, and not enough non-logical ones to go around. A formal device that would certainly work, but would be both a grammar change and a major change in thinking, is to introduce one or two new cmavo. Either a cmavo for "distributive", or one for "non-distributive", or one for each meaning may be introduced; in the last case, the unmarked situation remains ambiguous. A few possible syntaxes: A xai je B C [infix after connective] A je xai B C [infix before connective] A je B xai C [suffix, or can be seen as infix between "A je B" and "C"] xai A je B C [prefix] xai A je B [xa'i] C [paired delimiters] I don't like any of this. If new syntax is truly required, I believe the demands of history are such that "A je B C" must have the distributive reading unless a compelling case can be made otherwise. As second best, let it remain ambiguous but provide some way (by syntax or otherwise) of disambiguating. Taking "A je B C" as non-distributive only seems to me perverse. -- John Cowan cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!cbmvax!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban.