Message-Id: <199511232324.SAA00973@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Thu, 23 Nov 1995 18:15:35 -0500
Reply-To: Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: Jorge Llambias <jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: TECH: lambda and "ka" revisited
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR

And:
> I don't think the meaning of BAIs is that predictable. For example,
> {sepio} labels the tool, but one doesn't know who used it and what
> for and so on.

{pilno} is x1 uses x2 to do x3.

{sepi'o} labels the tool, and the main bridi would fall in the x3.
The what for is certainly present when {sepi'o} is used.

I'm not saying that BAIs are always that predictable, but that
is the general direction.

> I recognize that {fau} has been used differently from
> the way I use it, but I reason that (i) it's "official" meaning is
> not very precious, (ii) events are semantically sumti of the bridi
> - e.g. cimba is semantically a relationship between a kisser, a kissee
> and a kiss - so one wants a way to refer to them in a way that makes
> the syntax reflect the semantics, and (iii) this need is so ubiquitous
> that it calls for a nice short cmavo like {fau}.

I'm willing to go along with that, but I certainly won't be using
it much. Other than in {le jai fau}, which does the same job of {le nu}
only more clumsily, what other use would it have?

> > >  After all, le lojbo cuntu needs
> > > the involvement of Seething-Rationalist-Types as well as pragmatists.
> > I'm a Seething-Rationalist-Pragmatist. I believe that pragmatics and
> > rationality go hand in hand, not one against the other.
> No way. Look at the political domain. All fudge and compromise and
> fence-sitting. No seethingly rigorous application of Principle.

Thank God for that, given the Principles from where we'd have to choose.

> Maybe you mean you're a Seething-Rationalist-**Functionalist** - you
> think things are as good as they are useful.

I have a soft spot for beauty as well, I like balance. If you follow any
principle to its extreme you are likely to go overboard.

> But enough. We have assassinated the good character of NU,
> and henceforth NU shall skulk nefastously in the lazarets of our
> opprobrium.

You've more or less convinced me that {ledu'u} and {leka} should each
be one single word (so I will start writing them as such), and in
practice they do behave like that, since {du'u} and {ka} are never
used as selbri.

About {nu} I still have my doubts. You wouldn't want it as a {lenu}
word in any case, but rather you would want a proliferation of
additional sumti places. I'm not convinced that that would work better,
or even that it would be more rational. And I most definitely reject
the {le jai fau} contraption.

Jorge