Message-Id: <199406162332.AA00350@nfs1.digex.net> Reply-To: jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Date: Thu Jun 16 19:37:23 1994 Sender: Lojban list From: jimc@MATH.UCLA.EDU Subject: Re: sumti categories X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: Bob LeChevalier Status: RO X-From-Space-Date: Thu Jun 16 19:37:23 1994 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Jorge Llambias writes: > Let's see... who disgrees with this... > (2) Each slot of every selbri can be filled with sumti from only > one of those categories. > This restriction is not grammatical, because the grammar allows > any sumti to fill any slot, but rather, it's a semantic restriction. Aha, the hydra of dikyjvo raises its fearsome head yet again! A key point in my conception of dikyjvo was that one could in fact alter the definitions of "all" gismu so that their arguments were semantically restricted in just about the ways Jorge proposes: they were divided among "things", "events" and "texts". "Numbers" were assumed to be a special case of "things" but they did clearly have a disjoint set of argument places. Then one could unambiguously apply various transformation rules to a dikyjvo to extract a canonical form containing only gismu (and structure words), according to the pattern of arguments of the component gismu. For example, in one case an abstraction appears because the main gismu "expects" one, while a regular sumti pops up for a transitive gismu expecting regular sumti. When the definitions are radically hacked, the resulting patterns work almost by mental telepathy to deliver accurate and credible meanings, with good coverage of what one might want to say, and very few instances where circumlocutions are needed to evade an unwanted interpretation. Unfortunately, at the time Lojbab was moving the Lojban definitions in another direction, and the distinction between semantic categories was already blurred and became more so. So the answer to Jorge's question is, yes, there is a core of semantic regularity to argument places, but no, it is not regular enough to support higher level constructs like dikyjvo. Should this situation change (thereby delaying the dictionary substantially)? Let's hear some clamor... James F. Carter Voice 310 825 2897 FAX 310 206 6673 UCLA-Mathnet; 6221 MSA; 405 Hilgard Ave.; Los Angeles, CA, USA 90024-1555 Internet: jimc@math.ucla.edu BITNET: jimc%math.ucla.edu@INTERBIT UUCP:...!{ucsd,ames,ncar,gatech,purdue,rutgers,decvax,uunet}!math.ucla.edu!jimc