From lojbab Tue Jul 19 02:44:47 1994
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 1994 02:44:40 -0400
From: Logical Language Group <lojbab>
Message-Id: <199407190644.AA12244@access1.digex.net>
To: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Subject: Re: cukta
Cc: lojbab@access.digex.net, lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
Status: RO

It was my opinion that the two versions of the definition were not incompatible.
To me, le cukta has always been a manifestation of a work, and le se cukta 
has been the work, and le xe cukta has been the medium.  As we discussed at
LogFest, this has been clarified by rewording the definition, with what I now
recognize as a change to x2 that I might have not agreed with if I had thought
more  - but I won't go back on.

The old definition
x1 - a specific manifestation of a work by someone - the words 'not a physical
object' were used to indicate that it wqas not this thing of bound paper that
made it a book, but the fact that it was a logical container of a work, a
'text' (images m8ight also be included).  The wording failed to distinguish
between the 'text' and the logical 'container' of the text, because to me
the two are really inseparable - it doesn't become a cukta until you
but the 'text' in, and it ceases to be if you take the 'text' out (if this
is possible).
   An authoer doesn't write le cukta, but rather the work that goes into le
cukta.  But from that work, the publisher will produce many instances of
le cukta - many manifestations of the work.
x2, x3, and x4 were the standard places used to describe a work - subject, 
author, and intended audience
x5 was the medium in which the manifestation was stored.

THus my copy of the forthcoming dictionary would be
le jbovlacku cu cukta la lojban mi lei lojbo lei skami vreji
The dictionary is a book about Lojban by me for the Lojban community in medium
computer records.

If I make a copy of this for Jorge, it is a different instance of le cukta
containing the same work x2/x3/x4.  If I print it out, I get a diffoerent x1
and x5, but x2/3/4 stay the same.

That is what I ontended, but apparently not what people were reading.  The 
focus seemed to be on my words 'not a physical object' which had been intended
to deny that x1 had anything to do with a particular physical form
(the book when it is on my computer screen in certainly not a physical object).


The revised definition, as worded by Cowan, did not at first semm to me a
substantitve change.  It is:

JL> cukta     cku      book                                      x1 is a book
JL> containing work x2 by author x3 for audience x4 preserved in medium x5
JL> 1f 163    [x1 is a manifestation/container [a physical object or its
JL> analogue] of a work/con tent, not necessarily using paper (= selpapri)];
JL> (cf. cfika, prina, prosa, tcidu, papri)

In this defintion, I believe that descriotions of all places except x2 now
accurately reflect what I intended in the old definition.

The new wording of x2 is that it contains a 'work', which thereby subsumes
the old x2/x3/x4 in a single place, as well as by implication, the 'type
of work'.  x3 and x4 are therfore mildly cleft from the new x2, but I think are
important at the surface level just as birthdate and location are important 
in actual usage to jbena.  So what we have is less than ideal but not
unaccesptable.

My conclusion is that I tried too hard to avoid one type of confusion - between
le cukta and le selpapri, and in so doing created another - between le cukta,
and what is now le se cukta.  I hope the compromise definition out of LogFest
will get us by this confusion.

lojbab