Message-Id: <m0rEaEN-00007VC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Fri, 2 Dec 1994 17:08:36 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: cmavo hit-list
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 4100
Lines: 114

la djan cusku di'e

> In addition to formal mathematics, there is also "intuitive" (not
 intuitionist)
> or "household" mathematics, which we do occasionally need: "Now, let's see:
> 500 ml of milk is half a liter, so I need to use all of this carton and
> part of the next".  How's that in Lojban?

ka'u lo'e milylitce be li 500 du pimu lo'e litce  iseki'ubo mi nitcu le du'u
pilno piro le vi [se] vasru joi pisu'o le drata

How do you propose saying it using mekso?


> But "la'i" is +specific, so it's more useful than you think.
>
>         le mi patfu pu traji lo ka to'ercitno fo la'i kau,n.
>         My father was superlative in property old-age among the-set-of Cowans.
>
> Here I mean the Cowans in my family, not all the things which share the
> name.

I know there are uses for it, but it seems to me that they are contrived.
If you really need the set you can always say {lu'i ro la kau,n}. I know
{la'i} won't go away, so mine is just a comment to say I don't find it
useful.


> >         fi'a (question FA)
> >
> > This job is already done better by cu'e, I think.
>
> "cu'e" asks which modal place an argument belongs to, whereas "fi'a" asks
> which regular place an argument belongs to.

Yes, but regular places and modal places don't differ significantly.
If you ask me a question with {cu'e}, I think I should be able to answer
with a FA. If you ask with {fa'i}, I should be able to answer with a BAI.
The question being asked is what is the place of the sumti in that
relationship, and why should the answer be restricted to regular or modal
places?

> They don't overlap; they could
> be made to, but I think that loses too much meaning: "cu'e" is already
> extremely vague, and specific questions are better asked with "BAI ma".

That's a completely different question (and much more useful).
The cu'e/fa'i question is the least useful and has two different versions,
I suppose depending on what the expected answer is.

> >         bu'a bu'e bu'i  (logically quantified predicate variables)
> >
> > I don't know how to use them.
>
> The paper is unwritten, but we have at least one example so far:
>
>         ro bu'a zo'u la .aniis. cu djica le nu bu'a .inaja bu'a
>         For all X predicates, Anyi desires the event-of X-happens
>         only-if X-happens.
>         Anything Anyi wanted to happen, happened.
>
> Here the "ro bu'a" in the prenex acts as a quantification of "bu'a", although
> the parser thinks it is a gadri-less description.

Yuck. I'm with the parser on this one.

I would rather say something like:

        ro da zo'u la aniis cu djica le du'u da fasnu inaja da fasnu

> >         da'e da'u de'e de'u do'i
> >
> > They also seem too many. It would be nice if they could refer to
> > only part of a bridi, like the inside of an abstraction.
>
> They do not refer to bridi at all, but to utterances.

Right, but why couldn't they refer to utterances within a bridi as well,
or can they?

> >         na'o  (typically)
> >
> > I don't understand how it differs from ta'e.
>
> The term "subjective tense/modal" and "tense/modal" seem to be used
 {unsinnlich}
> in the cmavo list.  I believe that "ta'e" only refers to the behavior of
> animates who have habits.  "na'o" is the general term.

But animate/inanimate is a property of the sumti (of its referents), while
ta'e acts on a bridi. Can you use ta'e with a bridi that accepts an animate
sumti, but not filling that place?

What is the difference, for instance, between:

        mi ta'e dunda lo xruli ko'a
        I habitually (during the interval in question) give a flower to Koha

        mi na'o dunda lo xruli ko'a
        I typically (during the interval in question) give a flower to Koha

I suppose the "habit" is as much Koha's as mine, but what is the difference
between the claims?

> >         vu'i sei se'o fu'e fu'o
>
> "se'o" is for claims made on the basis of uninspectable internal mental
> processes.

Yes, I meant to write se'u. Thanks for the explanations, I had forgotten
what sei-se'u and fu'e-fu'o were for. The cmavo list definitions are not very
helpful for that.

Jorge