From LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU Sat Mar 6 22:49:53 2010 Received: from YALEVM.YCC.YALE.EDU by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Mon, 2 Aug 1993 15:59:57 -0400 Received: from CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU by YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 3025; Mon, 02 Aug 93 15:58:46 EDT Received: from CUVMB.COLUMBIA.EDU by CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 5989; Mon, 02 Aug 93 15:59:24 EDT Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 13:02:41 EDT Reply-To: John Cowan Sender: Lojban list From: John Cowan Subject: Re: 'lerfu' glosses X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Erik Rauch In-Reply-To: <9307301422.AA14104@relay1.UU.NET>; from "C_Burke%SEMPERFI@mwmgate1.mitre.org" at Jul 30, 93 10:20 am Status: RO X-Status: X-From-Space-Date: Ukn Aug 2 16:00:00 1993 X-From-Space-Address: snark!cowan@GVLS1.VFL.PARAMAX.COM Message-ID: la karl. brk. cusku di'e > 'lerfu' relates a specific glyph x1, from a named > or indicated collection of glyphs x2, with a semantic interpretation x3. > The x2 place is ambiguous; does it refer to an 'alphabet' (Roman, Cyrillic, > Kanji, "Ogham") or to a specific encoding scheme (ASCII, EBCDIC, UniCode)? Either, I think, without difficulty. The alphabets are mere sets (well, not really, they have order among other non-settish properties) whereas the encoding schemes are mappings that can be reduced to sets by ignoring the range of the mapping: the set is the mapping's domain. > How many of these interpretations are correct?: > "lerfu('A', ASCII, )" -- omitting ASCII encoding This one looks fine. ASCII is really a metonym for "the augmented set of Roman characters which have ASCII assignments". > "lerfu('A', ASCII, 0x41)" -- omitting other interpretation Also OK. You can think of the character code as being a semantic of a limited kind. > "lerfu(0x41, ASCII, )" -- but then x1 is encoding, not glyph Probably wrong. > You could blur x1 to mean the glyph, the character, or (possibly) the encoding, > and build tanru/lujvo if you need more specificity. This should work in many > cases; Yes. Really, I think that "le lerfu" is neither glyph nor character, but a kind of Platonic essence. > 'Character' has numerous other meanings in English which can cause > confusion, but does (sloppily) incorporate the idea of binding a graphic > symbol to an encoding. Only for skami prenu. The "rest of us" think it very odd to speak of letters and numerals as "characters", which probably suggests either hanzi or Damon Runyon types. > 'Letteral' is cute, possibly a portmanteau from > 'letter' and 'literal', No, actually an analogical coinage on the basis number:numeral::letter:X. > but it's obscure jargon and makes a bad gloss > unless the word has been explicitly defined (and used often!) before > it's encountered in the gismu list. As Bob has said, almost all Lojban-specific words have jargon glosses: >sumti< 'argument', >bridi< 'predication', etc. -- John Cowan cowan@snark.thyrsus.com ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan e'osai ko sarji la lojban.