From LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:52:02 2010 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Thu, 27 May 1993 11:47:18 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 4957; Thu, 27 May 93 11:46:25 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 6384; Thu, 27 May 93 11:46:15 EDT Date: Thu, 27 May 1993 08:44:25 -0700 Reply-To: jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Sender: Lojban list From: jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Subject: Re: how to say X-To: lojban@cuvmb.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 26 May 93 11:21:44 EDT." <9305261708.AA24309@julia.math.ucla.edu> X-From-Space-Date: Thu May 27 01:44:25 1993 X-From-Space-Address: @YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Message-ID: John Cowan proposes to translate "I look through the window" as: > mi bancu be le canko ku catlu (ku added by jimc) > I (beyond the window) look Suppose this sentence were fed to a semantic analysis program; what (if anything) could the program extract from it? In particular, what is the relation between the window and other sentence components? The current "definition" of tanru semantics is that the main word is metaphorically modified in a figurative sort of way. Thus beyondness relative to the window is figuratively related to other sentence components. I would prefer to see some kind of diktanru semantic rule so that a tanru like this had some chance at meaning something. This particular tanru would be particularly hard for the kinds of rules I've experimented with. I would be happier translating the sentence like this, where the main bridi is said by a subordinate clause to penetrate the window. In a predicate language such as Lojban, when predicates are used to express the relations a semantic analyser can get a grip on the meaning. mi catlu fi'o pagre le canko [fe'u] I look (which event penetrates the window) And as was pointed out yesterday (sorry, I forgot who), this form comes out neater with a real sumti tcita derived from pagre. I like to think of prepositional phrases as representing a deep structure where the tagged sumti is related to the modified bridi in a "fi'o " kind of clause. mi catlu pa'o le canko (I chose pagre rather than bancu because bancu would signify that the whole event, i.e. spatially the looker, the lookee and the line between them, was beyond the window relative to some reference point, by default the speaker's location, ignoring the minor detail that the speaker is explicitly identified as the looker.) 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