From @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Wed Mar 17 11:52:55 1993 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Wed, 17 Mar 1993 06:54:36 -0500 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 6445; Wed, 17 Mar 93 06:53:28 EST Received: from CUVMB.BITNET by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 7449; Wed, 17 Mar 93 06:54:37 EST Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1993 11:52:55 GMT Reply-To: C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK Sender: Lojban list From: C.J.Fine@BRADFORD.AC.UK Subject: Re: TECH: more about *mo'u To: Erik Rauch Status: O Message-ID: From: jimc@EDU.UCLA.MATH > > Colin Fine writes that in the construction {mi bebau la lojban casnu} That's "pebau" > it is inconceivable to interpret "bebau la lojban" simultaneously > as specifying the language of discussion, and as being an integral > part of the syntactically determined sumti {mi bebau la lojban}. It > has to be attached to one phrase or the other, not both at once. > If the sumti means anything, it means that "I" am somehow "in" the > Lojban language. I don't think that is what I wrote, but I accept it as a welcome summary. > > He and Mark Shoulson say that termsets are the right way to go, and > I agree. For example: > > nu'i mi bau la lojban nu'u .e do bau la gliban (nu'u) cu sanga > [ I (in Lojban) ] and [ you (in English) ] sing > > Someone (Mark I think) put out the hardest challenge: to use casnu as the > selbri, since it demands a plural set for its x1, the members of which > discuss something among themselves, like this: > > mi ce do casnu (bau la lojban) > I and(set) you discuss (something) (in Lojban language) > > The following is tempting: > > nu'i mi bau la lojban nu'u ce do bau la gliban (nu'u) cu casnu > I in Lojban and(set) you in English discuss > > What might it expand into? > > mi casnu bau la lojban .icebo do casnu bau la gliban > I discuss in Lojban and (set) you discuss in English > But we have been over this before. In general, non-logical connectives cannot be expanded. mi ce do casnu does not mean the same (probably) as mi casnu .ice do casnu (Incidentally, .icebo is certainly unnecessary, and I think ungrammatical. You need the "bo" after a tag, to prevent it swallowing the following sumti or selbri, but ".ice" cannot be confused with "ce".) > So we have a set composed of discourse level assertions of events of > discussion among single persons. This isn't very useful. Indeed. Unless > someone can come up with a more creative use of grammar, I have to > conclude that you cannot express the required meaning unambiguously in > Lojban, that I and you discuss (something) AND that my part of the > discussion was in Lojban while yours was in English. I don't agree. I think that non-logically connected termsets will do the job - though they are not grammatical at present. > > I don't shed any tears. English speakers sling sumti around and expect > their listeners to get them organized right, even inferring unspoken > default selbri. A logical language ought to have definite rules by > which the spoken words and phrases are organized and interpreted. In > consequence, complicated combined meanings which can be elided in > English will have to be written out prolixly in full if the rules are > to be followed. So if you want to be illogical, speak English. I agree with this, and this is what was behind my spirited attack on *mo'umau. I would prefer that Lojban did not have certain elisions (specifically PA SELBRI for PA lo SELBRI, and tu'a - though I confess I use both) - but I can make a case for them: PA SELBRI can be mechanically transformed to the pukka form with no real change in structure, and "tu'a" at least specifically signals "I am being grubby and eliding some structure". *mo'umau - and "mo'ubau" - say something different from what they are supposed to mean. Colin > -- jimc >