Message-Id: <m0rAOYL-00007EC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Wed, 23 Nov 1994 15:42:55 EST
Reply-To:     jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: diversity
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 2389
Lines: 60

la djer cusku di'e

> This gives me an opportunity to put in a
> commercial for my language-shifter cmavo which carries abstract sumti
> places into concrete sumti places. If we had the shift cmavo *ge'x

Better use a real experimental cmavo, which are of the form xV'V.
I think the only ones currently in use are xe'e and xa'e, so you can
pick any of the other 23 possibilities. (All the ge'V are already
taken anyway, so it doesn't make much sense to use ge'x.)

> which changes the substructure rules into 1st order predicate calculus;
> which is the foundation of our grammar anyway, we could say:
>
> mi djica *ge'x xe'e lo snuji [gi'z]
> I want one randomly taken sandwich, i.e. I want any sandwich,

Also, you don't really need the closing gi'z. I suppose your cmavo
would be in selmaho LAhE, that changes one sumti into another type of
sumti.

> and the x2 djica would be happy to receive a concrete sumti, in fact it
> would be the only acceptable kind. First order predicate calculus
> requires objects as its arguments. Predicates (bridi) are illegal.
>
> ABSTRACT SUMTI PLACE======>CONCRETE SUMTI PLACE
> (2nd order)          *ge'x  (first order)
>
> CONCRETE SUMTI ======>ABSTRACT SUMTI
> (1st order)    tu'a   (2nd order)
>
> To get djica and her kin working right we can alter the nature of the
> permissible variables with tu'a or alter the nature of the receptor
> site for the variables with *ge'x. A third way is the lujvo route
> suggested by lojbab and .and.

And a fourth way would be to make {djica} mean what that supposed lujvo
would mean, but this is incompatible with the others.

What I don't like about your proposal is that the meaning of the selbri
is somehow changed by the sumti that fill the places. There are already
many predicates that accept either objects or events, without special
marking. Why should djica &Co be an exception?

If the answer is because they are often used with opaque references, then
why not mark the opaque references as such, instead of forbidding all
object references? Isn't that throwing the baby with the bathwater or
something?

Or do you propose that in cases for example like:

>> zanru zar     zau  approve
>> x1 approves of/gives favor to plan/action x2 (object/event)

we should also use your cmavo when we talk about an object?

There is a simple meaning that can be given to {mi nitcu ti}. Why not
allow it?

Jorge