Message-Id: <m0rH5QN-00007LC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Mon, 12 Dec 1994 02:42:34 -0500
Reply-To:     Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN%CUVMB.bitnet@FINHUTC.hut.fi>
From:         Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      Re: jei
To:         ucleaar@ucl.ac.uk
Cc:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
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>Similarly "Mi djuno fi le mamta be do" could, presuming cooperating
>interlocuotrs, mean "I know who is your mother". But that is a rather
>vague way of going about it.

Yep.  And it is one I suspect that I have used more often tnan the ledu'u
...kau trick, which as I said does not feel right.  It is valid; it is
 accurate;
it is longwinded when there is a more comfortable way to say it.  I would
more likelly use "kau" when working with connectives and other cases where
there doesn't seem to be a short form that is so obvious.  In no way will I
stop others, or even object to others, using that form - it is correct.
But either it isn't in my little Lojbanistanis' heads, or I haven't yet heard
 them use it yet.  (I haven't done much listening of late, of course.)

>"Jei" is really an unwarranted shorthand for "x1 [a number] is truth
>value [jitfa zei jetnu] fe lo duhu broda".

Unwarranted?  why?  And "falsishly-true is not in the least a meaningful tanru
to me, nor would it fly under Nick's lujvo place structure conventions.  YOu
are stretching because you don'yt like the thing.  But it predates ledu'u,
explicitly acknowledges that truth values are different from the statements
that they evaluate, and preserve a way to talk about fuzzy logic if it becomes
more useful in the strongly truth-functional world of Lojbanists.

>This is a bit of a mouthful, but I'd rather see a gadri version of
>"makau" used to abbreviate this, as in "Mi djuno fe/fi [makau [jifyjetnu
>be lo duhu broda]]".

Remembering that "lenu" and "lejei" and "ledu'u" ARE single word gadri in
JCB's world (he doesn't actually have the latter two, but his NU can be joined
to the preceding LE with changed grammar, and JCB considers this joined-word
version of NU to be not an abbreviation for the disjoint version), I think we
 have already historically done what you ask - you can if you want, think of
"lejei" as an abrreviation for thatmouthful including bthe "be lo du'u" after
 it.  lejei, like lenu is a gadri that takes an abstraction rathe rthan a
description.

In short, I think we are arguing aesthetics and history here.

lojbab