Message-Id: <199311030829.AA06578@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Wed, 3 Nov 1993 03:27:13 -0500
Reply-To: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      TECH: more thoughts on zi'o
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: RO

This may be the ramblings of a too-long Russian student in the middle of the ni
night, but I think I've come up with a general category of predications where
zi'o will be needed.  These also justify the existence of some commonly used
related words like klama and litru.

The latter correspond very nicely with what in Russian are the "unidirectional"
verbs of motion (which empohasize the direction of motion) and the
"multidirectional" verbs of motiuon, which emphasize the fact of motion.
The latter, when the specify a location, do so for purpose of indicating
motion through that location (i.e. route), whereas the former have a
definite destination place.

These in themselves look like the support the Lojban design, but then a couple
of exercises in the Russian textbook tonight made me think twice.  How do
we express a statement like "They often walk through the park", where "they"
refers to people who aren;t necessarily walking together even once, much less
"often".  For these people, the route has a common general description, and
we could just put "le panka" in the route place.  But we are stretching things,
to do this, since none of the people has the same exact route, and indeed the
people may not have the same route each time they individually walk through
the park.

I think the semantics of route places can handle this, but origin and
destination places cannot.  I can think of no meaningful way to use klama
to talk about a group of people who walk through a park, since there is NO
value for destination or origin that would make the statement true (other
than in some rare situations where a "respectively" construction might apply,
associating each individial with their individual route for each act of
walking).  In this case, "litru" is thus useful and a lifesaver.

But by this analogy it IS possible to think of a "maker-less" zbasu usage.
Isee a whole bunch of artifacts and I say that they are se zbasu.  But of
course they are not necessarily se zbasu be pada (made by one individual)
and they are not necessarily made from the same or similar materials, either,
so ther emay be no description that can express the x3 place of zbasu
either.

I don't know what we need to do in these cases to make the dictums of
predicate logic apply to the usages.  Do we presume that omitting the place
puts a zo'e in which stands for the unexpressible allocation of makers and
materials to the artifacts, or in the first example, the allocation of
originas and destinations of the various go-ers on their various wanderings
through/via the park.  Or is it more appropriate to say that zo'e MIGHT in
some cases stand for zi'o as well.

Needless to say, I can easily imagine coming up with a family of lujvo that
fit these circumstances wherein one might want to leave off one or more
places because some other place is massified or collectivized in the manner
described above.  Compounds of cafne are the easiest to put in this
category.  What does Nick the lujvo-structurer do with these lujvo in
terms of place structure?  Do we have a possible new kind of lujvo place
structuring implied here in addition to your 6 or whatever kinds so far?

lojbab