Message-Id: <199310221822.AA02438@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Fri, 22 Oct 1993 14:17:00 EDT
Reply-To: protin@USL.COM
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Art Protin <protin@USL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Event contours and ZAhO tcita
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: RO

Mark E. Shoulson, in his message of 21 Oct 93 quotes some people and
then comments:

> This proposal has been made before, long ago, and I still don't buy
> it (assuming you mean what I think you do, that all BAI places are
> really somehow implicitly there in every bridi).  I mean, consider
> {mi cadzu le loldi le tuple}.  Any notions what fills the {fi'o cakla}
> place which you claim is there?  Where's the chocolate?  It doesn't
> seem to work for me to say that all those aleph-null places (every
> possible selbri has at least one BAI-equivalent {fi'o} clause) are
> present in every bridi.

The resurrection of this debate after the others I recently got into
brings me to the conclusion that rather than assume that all BAI
places are implicitly there all the time in every bridi, I put forward
that not all of the standard places are there all the time.  I
believe that with "real" languages (read here a term like "natural
languages" but allowing for languages that were consciously
manipulated or initially constructed) do not allow pin-point precision
in defining its words.  I believe that our bridi represent relations
"sufficiently" similar to some hypothetical ("midpoint") stereotype.
I believe that, for the most common of bridi, the stereotype has
to be very close to what can be represented with only one or two places
filled.  The use of more places than a user (aka speaker) (and
listeners as well) is familiar with, forces the user to further
generalize and parameterize the relation.
    When it comes to BAI places, that the place must be connected
by an extra mechanism implies to me that the relation being described
is far enough removed from the stereotype as to be outside the
common understanding of the relation.  It may be a perfectly
reasonable extension where both speaker and listener can come to
sufficiently similar visualizations as to be said to agree as to the
meaning of the extension.  However, BAI places are either aspects of
the relation that are normally never changed or are normally not seen
as aspects of the relation.  As Mark so neatly points out, chocolate
is almost never seen as an aspect of walking.


    Some side comments:
        1) Is my gismu list out of date or is the second place of
        cadzu a destination.  I read Mark's example as "I walk to
        to get to the floor having left from the/a leg of some
        indeterminate organism and traveling along some unspecified
        path".  (On second thought, maybe chocolate belongs here
        although I would normally expect a much stronger drug
        was needed to get a person off the floor. :-))

    thank you all,
    Art Protin


Arthur Protin <protin@usl.com>
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are strictly those of the author and
are in no way indictative of his employer, customers, or this installation.