Date: Sun, 22 Jan 1995 13:29:14 -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>
Reply-to: jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU
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And:
> > > Can you give construction-independent rules for interpreting
> > > {keha} and {makau}?
> > I can try:
> > ke'a is a place keeper for the things that have the property in question.
> > makau shows which of the other tersumti is the one that varies with ke'a.
>
> How does that work for keha in relative clauses, and makau in duhu
> abstractions? (That's what I meant by construction-independent - rules
> not specific to ka abstractions.)

For {ke'a}, the meaning is not exactly the same as that in relative
clauses, although in both cases it's a place holder. In any case, I think
we agree on what {ke'a} means inside a {ka}.

I'll try again for {makau}. It is a specific sumti that is not necessarily
identified by the speaker. Let me give another example. Say there's a blue
house, and I want to say "I like the colour of that house". A literal
translation would be {mi se pluka le se skari be le zdani}. But this is
not what I usually would mean. All that says is that I like the colour
blue. What I mean is that I like a property of the house, not that I like
a certain colour. A better translation would then be {mi se pluka
le ka ke'a skari makau kei be le zdani}.

It would not be the same to say {mi se pluka le ka ke'a skari da kei
be le zdani}, because that says that I like that the house has a colour
(ie that it is not transparent, I suppose).


> > The tersumti of {skari} are filled with zo'e, which is some obvious
> > or default but fixed value, but the tersumti that has makau is the
> > one that changes when for different fillers of the ke'a place, thus
> > contributing to make the whole {ka} different.
>
> I understand, but it seems very ad hoc. It seems to me that you are
> innovating in a radical way, and my worry is you're straying beyond
> the well-understood logical basis of Lojban, though I'm not competent
> to say whether my worry is justified.

I don't think I'm using {makau} very differently than its use with
{du'u}, but I admit that I can't give a rigorous definition, only
examples.

> It is *ka* that requires an explicit or implicit keha as one of the sumti
> of its complement bridi, with this sumti being identified with x2 of ka.

Ok, I think you've convinced me of that.

> Is there a word that means "bridi with one empty tersumti" - i.e. what
> the complement of LE is? This is what the complement of ka is.

In syntactic terms, the complement of LE is a sumti-tail, which indeed
is a selbri with one of its tersumti singled out, namely the x1.

I think that {ke'a} (or some other lambda variable) is the way to single
out a tersumti for {ka}. The alternative (forcing it to be the x1, like
for LE) is in my view unnecessarily restrictive.

> > > Dear me. I do think you're excessively infatuated with flexibility.
> > Indeed I value it highly, especially in a relatively inflexible
> > language like Lojban.
>
> I go along with that only if a very firm and clear conceptual distinction
> is made between grammatical devices motivated by logical necessity
> (making things otherwise inexpressible expressible), on the one hand,
> and, on the other hand, devices motivated by a need for flexibility
> or concision. Furthermore, I would like the devices for flexibility
> and concision to be optional add-ons to a basic structure consisting
> only of logically necessary devices.

If something can be expressed in two ways, which way is "logically
necessary", and which is an optional add-on? You could say that each is
logically necessary if you eliminate the other.

Jorge