Message-Id: <m0tJKqD-0000ZUC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Sat, 25 Nov 1995 08:39:17 -0500
Reply-To:     Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From:         Logical Language Group <lojbab@ACCESS.DIGEX.NET>
Subject:      multiply defined cmavo -response to Jorge
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 2797
Lines: 61

Jorge:
>> I don't see it as elegance.  If we want to play this kind of game, we
>> could save lots of cmavo by defining them to mean different things in
>> different situations.
>
>For example?  Would that really be possible?

We do already.  Any place a selma'o appears in two different parts of
the grammar it "means" two different things.

We just try to make sure that the usages are consistent enough
semantically as to not lead to confusion.  Thus we have SE+BAI which is
arguably different from SE+BRIVLA and SE+JA.  We have ME+SUMTI+MEhU, and
the same construct with MOI attached (can't remember what it means, but
it solved a problem %^).  Either ME or MOI or both is changing meaning
there from other occurances.

JCB has a couple of cmavo that mean one thing as part of a number, and
another totally unrelated by themselves.  It could be argued that we do
also in BY as a sumti vs.  BY as a part of a PA-string.

But the more you do this, the more you create the possibility of
ambiguity or simple unlearnability.

Imagine having goi be defining if one side were a ko'V, but "pe" if it
were not.  It works grammatically, but would cause confusion.  Think of
the problems we have now with JOI between descriptions.  Nick HATES
having to insert that "ku" before JOI, but it is necessary because JOI
is ambiguous without it to LR1, even though as he correctlly claims, it
is unlikely that a human being would ever get confused.

>In any case, I'm not really proposing a different meaning for {ke'a} in
>different situations.  Its meaning in relative clauses already is very
>much lambdaish.  And more importantly, its grammar already allows it, so
>I am perfectly justified in using it.

But here you are using the same cmavo in the same grammatical rule to
mean something unrelated depending on context, and you have effectively
said that there exist cases where you would have an ambiguity with
multiple ke'a in a single sentence that would HAVE to be resolved using
subscripts, where each is interpreted by a different rule while occuring
in the same grammatical context.  Do you see why I feel that is pushing
one step too far.

I mentioned elsewhere in a posting today that mathematicians use "+" for
different operations at different times.  But as far as I know, in any
given equation, "+" will only have a single definition.

>{da poi ke'a broda} is "something which has the property {le ka ke'a broda}".
>You can't use {da poi da broda} to get the same meaning, so {ke'a} is never
>just a copying pronoun.

Why not?  I thought that repetitions of a quantified variable, in the
absence o explicit prenex, are the same.

>What does the utterance "mu" mean by itself?  Obviously it is only a
>short form of a sentence, not just a number.

I'd have to ask a mathematician %^)

lojbab