From nsn  Sat Mar  6 22:52:11 2010
From: nsn (Nick Nicholas)
Subject: Re: Lojban->Prolog: conjunctions
To: jimc@math.ucla.edu
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1993 18:54:31 +1000 (EST)
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Message-ID: <d1MVNQjYBUM.A.SF.b00kLB@chain.digitalkingdom.org>

The Seraphim surely rejoiced when jimc@math.ucla.edu spoke thus:
}> mi .e do cu prami ro lo nanmu gi'e xebni ro lo ninmu
}> ****
}> inmu(_FISRZ, _FIUPM, _FIUPN, _FIUPO, _FIUPP), [], xebni(koha, _FISRZ, _FISSA,

}Very nice, using ko'a to pipe through the pre-argument of the
}previous bridi tail.  I agree with this use of ko'a as a general anaphor
}for the implied argument of a complex construction rather than being
}limited to subordinate clauses.  Is it authoritative that there is 
}exactly one pre-argument (not zero, not more) of every bridi tail?

Um, actually *blush* the 'do' was a typo; I hadn't put 'do' in my database
(for fear that I'd need a lot more human/computer interfacing before the
human could talk to the machine), and the phrase actually had ko'a in the
fist place. As for pre-piping, what I do in my program is keep track of
how many prearguments there have been, and continue counting with the
postarguments, before returning and processing the selbri. Thus
X Y selbri Z -> E X E Y E Z selbri(X,Y,Z). The terms nonterminal before
the briditail returns the pre-selbri quantifiers, and what the sumti count
is (eg whether we have an x4 coming up, an x2, or what). The briditail
nonterminal takes that set of prequantifiers in as an input, gets the set
of postarguments, appends the second to the first, and (delayed) passes
them on to the selbri nonterminal.

If I'm not making sense, I can always send the code.

In any case, I'm relying on Prolog rather than Lojban preprocessing to do
my semantic manipulations; this might just prove forbidding with tenses,
but so far I've gotten away with an indefinite number of SE, and conjunctions.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Nick S. Nicholas,                      "Rode like foam on the river of pity
CogSci & CompSci student,               Turned its tide to strength
University of Melbourne, Australia.     Healed the hole that ripped in living"
nsn@{munagin.ee|mundil.cs}.mu.oz.au           - Suzanne Vega, Book Of Dreams
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