From @YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Mon May 3 11:55:24 1993 Received: from YaleVM.CIS.Yale.Edu (YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU) by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Mon, 3 May 1993 15:59:50 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.CIS.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 1194; Mon, 03 May 93 15:59:22 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 8230; Mon, 03 May 93 16:00:17 EST Date: Mon, 3 May 1993 15:55:24 EDT Reply-To: The Songbringer -- Marnen to the common folk Sender: Lojban list From: The Songbringer -- Marnen to the common folk Subject: Logical extensions to English (!)..... X-To: conlang , lojban@cuvmb.bitnet To: Erik Rauch Message-ID: To all my fellow conlangers and Lojbanists: I have just come up with a rather unorthodox idea, and I'd like any help I can get in testing/implementing it. I am trying to create logical extensions (conceptual parentheses and a MEX grammar) for English (or French, or German, or Esperanto, or...; i. e. natural and naturalistic languages -- could we call this lojgliban.?). The need for these is made clear from this example (taken from a paper on Lojban negation): does 'Not everybody loves me' mean 'Not (everybody) loves me,' i. e. 'There are those who do not love me,' or does it mean 'Not (everybody loves me),' i. e. 'Nobody loves me'? To deal with such things, I propose -- and I am by no means sure that this is the best solution -- the adoption of cmavo. Since I have next to no knowledge of Lojban (and since there are many things I don't like about it anyway) I have created my own cmavo for parentheses (these are interim, thought up rather hastily at 4 A.M.). First of all, to deal with nested parentheses, this plan assigns each pair a number, as follows: ... (0 ... (1 ... (2 ... )2 ... )1 ... )0. Thus, the higher the number, the less the extent of the pair. The second step is to give these numbers a verbal form. Here is my (far from perfect) suggestion for this: ( ) | 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 | x10 x100 x1000 x10000 k p | a e i o u sa se si so su | l m n r Thus, pair 0 would be ka ... pa, pair 7 would be ksi ... psi, pair 18 would be kelso [k-e-l-so: (-1-x10-8] ... palso, pair 250 would be kimsala ... pimsala (or kasalim ... pasalim, but I prefer to put larger powers of 10 first), and so on. This system provides for 99999 pairs of parentheses. Alternatively, one could use a simple positional notation, something like the following: ( ) | 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 k p | ra re ri ro ru sa se si so su where pair 0 would be kra ... pra, pair 7 would be ksi ... psi, pair 18 would be kreso ... preso, pair 250 would be krisara ... prisara, etc. This system has several advantages: there's only one form for each number, and it allows for an infinite number of parentheses. Please let me know what you think about this, and let me know about any ideas you have for a MEX (Mathematical EXpression) grammar. Other than the parentheses, I have no proposal for MEX syntax yet. I look forward to hearing from you! Thanks, -- =============================================================================== _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ | Marnen E. | |/ \ \ / \ \ / \ \ | |/ \_\ | |/ \ \ / \_\ | |/ \ \ | Laibow-Koser | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |/ | | | | | laibow@brick. |_| |_| |_| \_\|_| |_| |_| |_| \_\_/ |_| |_| | purchase.edu | SUNY Purchase ===============================================================================