From lojbab Sat Mar 6 22:55:37 2010 Subject: Re: Mad Proposals II: The watered down version. To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu From: lojbab Date: Fri, 11 Mar 1994 17:41:46 -0500 (EST) Cc: lojbab (Logical Language Group) In-Reply-To: <199403110251.AA13509@nfs1.digex.net> from "Jorge Llambias" at Mar 10, 94 09:53:14 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 1444 Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Fri Mar 11 17:41:46 1994 X-From-Space-Address: lojbab Message-ID: > MAD PROPOSAL NUMBER 2: > > Replace {gi'e}'s by {gije}'s, and allow {gijoi}'s for the same function. I hadn't really given thought to these proposed {gijoi} forms before. The main question is, what do they mean? Bridi-tails aren't really semantically meaningful in the Lojban context; "gi'e" exists primarily to imitate natural languages which have NP-VP sentences: 1) mi klama le zarci gi'e cadzu le bisli I go-to the market and walk-on the ice. In the English sentence, the "and" is connecting VPs, but in the Lojban it's connecting a selbri-plus-trailing-sumti, a purely "surface syntax" notion. We explain giheks by the corresponding ijeks, as it is a principle in Lojban that all logical connectives "expand out" to bridi logical connection. For non-logical connection, though, this rule does not hold: 2) mi joi do klama le zarci I massed-with you go-to the market does not expand to 3) mi klama le zarci .ijoi do klama le zarci and in fact Example 3 doesn't have a well-understood meaning. (What does it mean to construct a mass of two sentences, or of the claims of two sentences?) The only ijoik explained in my reference grammar is ".ice'o", which separates the elements of an ordered list of bridi. I believe that non-logical bridi-tail connectives have no place in the language, because they have no natural semantics. -- John Cowan sharing account for now e'osai ko sarji la lojban.