Message-Id: <199402081848.AA04000@eli.CS.YALE.EDU>
Date:         Tue, 8 Feb 1994 13:44:48 EST
Reply-To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.YALE.EDU>
From: Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: cukta
To: Erik Rauch <rauch>
Status: RO

la and cusku (to ji'a le prani be fo mi pinka toi) di'e

>     I suggest that either:
>
> 1)
> the gi'uste gets changed to have a new gismu for
>
> x1 is a composition about subject/theme/story x2 by author x3
> for audience x4 preserved in medium x5

This definition has problems, too. I don't think one wants to say
that "Hamlet" is a composition by Shakespeare, preserved in medium X.
The medium is irrelevant here.

> and that "cutka" be changed to take on the meaning of the physical
> object.

I think this is what lojbab suggests (see below)


la djan mi di'e spuda

> > Are two copies of "War and Peace" that are preserved in different media
> > one {cukta}, or two {cukta}? If one, then the x5 place is wrong, if two,
> > then we are talking of the physical object.
>
> I'm not sure what either you or the gismu list means by "medium".  I interpret
> the list as intending x5 to distinguish a book bound in hard covers, from
> one bound in paper covers, from one stored on CD-ROM.

That's how I interpret it. What I can't understand is how to make a useful
predication using that place, if the book is not a copy, but the 'work' itself.

(Thanks for the explanation of "convention".)


la lojbab jarco le danfu

> If the consensus is that the current definition is unsatisfactory, I am
 willing
> to change it, but along lines like the following:
>
> a cukta is a realtionship between some unitary container of a 'work' and the
> 'work' itself.  Places for author/subject etc would thereby have to be
 expressed
> by complicated expressions in x2.  The medium of recording would be x3.

This seems the best solution, I like it.

> The negative (or positive, depending on how you look at it) is that I cannot
> see how such a definition excludes a television movie videocassette (a book
> of tv images?) and a whole bunch of other things.

Maybe a {lo selpapri/lo selprina} default for x3? Even if it's not said
explicitly, it will probably be taken as the default.

> But it does give a physical object in x1.
>
> This would give something like
> le re selpapri cu cukta le cfika po'u la jamna joi panpi le selprina

(Notice that you changed my {je} to {joi} but you didn't change it to
{la nunjamna joi nunpanpi}, but since we use {la} it can be anything
we want! :)

>
> Does this offer anything to you and others who agree with you?

I'm very happy with it.

Jorge
>
> lojbab
>