From LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:54:39 2010 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Fri, 5 Mar 1993 13:26:16 -0500 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 5034; Fri, 05 Mar 93 13:22:32 EST Received: from CUVMB.BITNET by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 7739; Fri, 05 Mar 93 13:28:14 EST Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1993 10:24:52 -0800 Reply-To: jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Sender: Lojban list From: jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Subject: TECH: Properties X-To: lojban@cuvmb.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch Status: OR X-From-Space-Date: Fri Mar 5 02:24:52 1993 X-From-Space-Address: @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Message-ID: <7zTzxf6MMxD.A.nz.v20kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org> John Cowan puts his finger on it by saying that there is a serious problem with property abstractions. Lojbab emphasizes the importance of a conservative solution to the problem. Bob Chassell makes a key point that essence-ist philosophy has a long tradition in the Western world. Jerry Koenig points out very clearly the reason that Lojban is not essence-ist, and thus that John Cowan's reservations about properties are vacuous -- but vacuous in a way which has to be dealt with carefully in our use of the language (we're essence-ist, after all) and in our teaching of it to essence-ist newcomers. To summarize for anyone who missed the foregoing messages, an essence-ist philosopher considers important the properties of an object which are special to it; an archetype of essence-ist study is the taxonomy of creatures, and determining just what it is that makes one kind of creature special. In a predicate language such as Lojban, a selbri is considered to represent a relation, which means that it represents a long list of objects which are thus related. For example, rat1 eats cheese1; rat2 eats cheese1; rat1 eats sandwich2; etc. ad nauseum; and this is the "true meaning" of the word "eat" rather than some uninterpretable text string about mouths and swallowing (in which the mouth is defined circularly as "the organ for eating"). From this point of view, properties are merely a user's idea of regularities in the meaning lists (if any there be), and not anything fundamental to the language. Thus the only difference between "nu" and "ka" is, "ka" signals that the speaker will be taking an essence-ist posture relative to the phrase referents. This, I believe, is what JCB means by "lean" vs. "fat" events. So what about ellipsis? I would say that the blind men are feeling around the butt end of the elephant. Consider John's example 4: 4) la djan. zmadu la djordj. le ka se prami mi John exceeds George in-the property-of being-loved-by me John says that zmadu x3 (the property) contains an ellipsis, i.e. the words of the sentence do not signify that a particular person is in x1 of "se prami". So just who is being loved? And if multiple places were ellipsized, which one is abstracted to form the property? I would like to suggest a change of interpretation which removes this confusion. In a subordinate clause the modified sumti is auto-replicated into x1 (after conversion) of the clause, e.g. 5) le mlatu poi xekri The cat, The which is black I request that a similar auto-replication be made with zmadu, namely: 6) la djan. zmadu la djordj. le nu (ke'a) se prami mi John exceeds George in-the-property-of ((John, resp. George) is loved by me) Thus x1 and x2 are successively replicated into x1 (after conversion) of two copies of x3, with no ellipsis involved, and then the "degree" of each copy is evaluated and they are compared. This interpretation is unambiguous and is easy for a speaker to generate and for a listener to understand. It also requires no grammar changes. Just as in a subordinate clause, ke'a is optional and is usually omitted unless in an unusual place. I have used "nu" instead of "ka" merely because the resulting abstractions are of a form normally expressed with "nu"; there is no reason John could not choose "ka" to make his user-selected semantic point. Everyone cries out, "What's Carter saying? That's what zmadu *means*, and so his request is vacuous!" My point is, Cowan doesn't act as if zmadu x3 is subject to auto-replication, and replication is nowhere in any language documentation, and it got dumped on when I brought it up before in connection with dikyjvo. I'm bringing it out again now because the examples now before us show how valuable it is. zmadu is just about the most complex example you can get for replication, so let's see a more typical one: 7) le djacu cu binxo lo nu sligu The water becomes solid (freezes). With all of the various permutations of "binxo-become" there are problems identifying the exact items which are solid, due to the interpretation that invisible place occupants are ellipsized. With replication the interpretation is clear: replicate x1 into x2, unambiguously giving 7) le djacu cu binxo lo nu (ke'a) sligu The water becomes (the water is solid) When you see "lo nu broda", if you replicate the preceeding place of the containing bridi (ordered before conversion) you will get the right meaning 80% to 90% of the time, and if some place structures were straightened out the success rate could be increased. Nonetheless, some words like zmadu have exceptional patterns which must be specified word by word. There's more you can do with replication: replicate ellipsized places; replicate sumti referents (e.g. "le binxo lo nu sligu", that which freezes); retro-replicate buried sumti up to the main level (e.g. "lo nu le djacu ne le lalxu cu sligu cu se cfari", the lake freezing begins; what's in cfari x1?). But let's think about the basic process before the details. By interpreting certain buried places as replicates of containing bridi places, we can: 1. Avoid ambiguous interpretation of property-type abstractions 2. Do it with no change whatever to either grammar or existing text. James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897 FAX 310 206 6673 UCLA-Mathnet; 6221 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90024-1555 Internet: jimc@math.ucla.edu BITNET: jimc%math.ucla.edu@INTERBIT UUCP:...!{ucsd,ames,ncar,gatech,purdue,rutgers,decvax,uunet}!math.ucla.edu!jimc