Date: Sat, 14 Jan 1995 17:15:32 -0500 (EST)
From: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
Subject: Re: replies mainly re "ka"
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To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
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la and cusku di'e

> > > (b) It's not clear to me that your example does involve a property.
> > Can two things differ in anything but their properties?
> No.
> If x1 differs from x2 in property x3, whose property is x3's supposed
> to be? x1's or x2's? If it's a property they both have, then it's not
> one by which they differ.

Do you consider "size" to be a property? Can two things have that property
and differ in that property? i.e. can two things differ in size?

If ko'a and ko'e differ in size, then I would say:

        ko'a ko'e frica le ka ke'a barda

or whatever is the right lambda variable instead of {ke'a}.

This could be rephrased as:

        le ka ke'a barda kei be ko'a cu drata le ka ke'a barda kei be ko'e

or {frica} again instead of {drata}, but then I wouldn't know what
to do with the x3.

The same thing happens with {zmadu}. Is x3 a property of x1 or of x2?
If it's a property both have, how can one exceed the other in that
property?


> > >    da poi du la marcos a la pietros zohu de e di [end coordination]
> > >    poi du lohi cinba be da zohu de di na du
> > Contradiction. If de and di are equal to the same thing, then
> > {de di na du} is false.
> De and di aren't supposed to be equal to the same thing. But I do
> discern contradiction. Okay, let's try again.
>
>   de e di [end coord] poi du lohi cinba be da poi du la marcos a la
>   pietros zohu de di na du

I think it now works, because the scope of {e} should be wider than the
quantification of {da}, but I still didn't get confirmation of that from
Lojban Central. In my view, what you now have is:

  Ey, Ez: For all w in set {y,z} Ex: x=M or x=P, w is the set of all
  kissers of x, and y is not equal to z.

But you do need the Aw in front of the Ex.

> > > ("Ka" works like the
> > > predicate "x1 is species of x2".) So it doesn't make sense
> > > to have a full bridi (i.e. having a truth value) as complement
> > > of ka.
> > Does a full bridi for {li'i} make sense to you?
>
> Yes. "Mi se lihi [zohe] carvi" makes sense to me as "I experience rain".

But that is {mi se li'i carvi ke'a} or can you experience it by just
seeing it? But then what is the difference between experiencing and
observing?

> "Mi se ka zohe carvi" makes no sense to me at all. "Mi se ka keha carvi"
> means "I am rain".

Yes, and {mi se ka carvi ke'a} means "I am rained upon", which is what
has to happen for me to experience the rain, or do I experience it in
some other way?

> But "I experience rain" can be "Mi lifri lo carvi", and the tricky
> thing to say is "I experience being a man". So I would like to see
> ka and lihi parallel, as you suggest. In that case, "Mi se lihi [zohe]
> carvi" ought ideally to be ungrammatical, and "Mi se lihi keha nanmu"
> means "I experience being a man".

I'm not sure I get the problem. I don't much like {mi lifri lo carvi}
instead of {mi lifri le nu carvi}. It is sumti raising. I think that
the only difference between {ka} and {li'i} is that for {li'i} the one
having the property has to be sentient and conscious of the property.

> I am here using your keha for purposes of clarity only. I believe
> the need for it shows that ka, and, I am persuaded, lihi, are lodged
> in the wrong selmaho.

I don't agree. As long as we have a lambda variable, it can be made
perfectly clear what is the slot in question, and when it is obvious,
omitting the lambda variable causes no problem.

> > You would say: {lo ka ke'a nelci do kei be mi} = "the property of
> > liking you which I exhibit" or {lo ka mi nelci ke'a kei be do} = "the
> > property of being liked by me which you exhibit".
> > If ke'a is replaced in these cases by the corresponding sumti, it still
> > makes sense, even if it's not perfectly logical to do so.
>
> If keha is replaced in these cases by a non-corresponding sumti, then
> you get syntactically fine garbage that is semantic garbage (real junk,
> not just something surreal [=pragmatic "nonsense"]).

I agree, but syntactically correct Lojban is not guaranteed to be free
of semantic garbage.

There is no syntactic rule that constrains {ke'a} to be inside a relative
clause anyway, so there you have another nice source of semantic garbage.
Why should you want to syntactically eliminate the possibility of garbage
in {ka} when there is a lot of possibility everywhere else.

> You advocate a grammar change to allow use of keha.

It depends what you mean by grammar change. I don't want to make any change
in syntax, since {ke'a} is already syntactically allowed, being an ordinary
sumti.

> I instead advocate a grammar change whereby ka and lihi move out of
> NU. Ka could move into LE, but a more conservative move would be
> to set up a new selmaho for ka and lihi, such that:
>    as a syntactic head it behaves like LE
>    is a syntactic dependent it is a selbri

I don't see how that would work. If you want it to be like LE you will
need to use lots of {be}s and you lose the flexibility that {ke'a} gives
you because you are forced to bring the slot in question to the x1 place.

> This better maintains the pleasing homomorphism between syntax and
> semantics in Lojban.

There is no such homomorphism. Semantic garbage abounds in syntactic space.

> > > Since I think ka yields a singleton category, the choice of gadri
> > > (lo vs. lohe) doesn't matter.
> > That's why I always prefer {le ka}. I agree that ka yields a singleton,
> > and to me, {le} is the best gadri for such things, but I agree that
> > {lo} is also acceptable. (Same thing with {le du'u})
>
> That's interesting. I mean about duhu. I reckon ni is the same.

I had forgotten about {ni} in my classification! I never really understood
it, I think it's probably expressable as {le ka ...xokau... }, but
anyway, I'm not sure it has to be a singleton.

> But not lihi or siho or nu.

{li'i} and {si'o} would seem to be the personal equivalents of {ka} and
{du'u}, and I suppose you could say that they are not singletons because
they are subjective. I agree too that {nu} is not a singleton.

This is how I'm seeing the 'abstractions' now:

nu   (mu'e, pu'u, za'i, zu'o)
du'u (si'o)  (su'u = du'u taimakau...)
ka   (li'i)  (ni = ka ...xokau...)

jei (not really an abstraction, but often misused as jei = du'u xukau)

> > It is not the property that is a process. It is the acquiring of it.
> No I did mean the property is a process. But I see now for the first
> time a problem.
> This is what I meant: A property is a category, which is basically
> like a set. The set is a process: it comes into being in stages.

I don't think sets can be processes either.

> But that's not right: what is a process is "being a member of the
> category". So instead I shall say:
>
>    Naho ku lo nu ro lo gligicnau buha cu pruce
                                  ^cu

That's better, {lo nu ... cu pruce} makes more sense, but I don't
think you want the event of every Englishman having the property
to be your process.


> > To me, na'o means "typically" in the sense of "for most of the time", not
> > "for most cases". Your sentence says that for each Scotsman the property
> > is inherited most of the time, but not constantly.
>
> That looks like ro scoping over naho.
> What I want is "In general, if you examine the world you will find that
> each scotsman inherits the property", "the world is generally such that
> each scotsman inherits the property", "it is generally the case that
> each scotsman ....".

And I think that {na'o} has nothing to do with that, because it is a time
tense, a modifier of a time interval. Am I wrong?

Maybe {su'a} would help. It means something like "in general".

Jorge