Message-Id: <m0tIiGR-0000ZUC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Thu, 23 Nov 1995 19:52:02 +0000
Reply-To:     ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Sender:       Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From:         ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
Subject:      Re: TECH: lambda and "ka" revisited
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 4168
Lines: 89

Jorge:
> > > > My objection to {nu} is that really the event is an argument of the
> > > > bridi, so {jai fau broda} is truer to the meaning.
> > > I think that it is a sufficiently distinct argument that the current
> > > structure makes sense. In any case, your use of {fau} is pretty
> > > non-standard, since BAIs don't usually behave like that.
> > BAIs don't behave like what?
> Take {gau} for instance. It comes from the selbri {gasnu}: "x1 makes
> x2 happen". The sumti place that it adds will behave as the x1 of gasnu,
> and the x2 of that gasnu will be the main event minus the gau place.
> Now {fau} comes from {fasnu}, which doesn't have an x2 place, so all
> it does is add a place for some event, with an unspecified relationship
> to the main event.
> You want to take that extra event as the main event itself, but it
> need not be it (and in fact it has not been used like that.)

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. 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}.

> > Contemporary formal semantics tends to treat the event as an argument
> > of the predicate, so, e.g. KISS is a 3-place, with kisser, kissee, and
> > event (the kiss) arguments. I cannot tell you the rationale for that,
> > but I certainly agree with the upshot.
> The way to get that is with the prefix nun-. {nuncinba} has exactly
> the place structure you want. (But I doubt that it would be useful to
> have that as the standard form.)

Right. Good point. But it'll be a bit annoying to be prefixing virtually
every gismu with nun-.

> > I have feared {fau} means that. I think I shall just have to endeavour
> > to override that by force of usage. 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.

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

> > Ah, well ideally we now merge {ka} and {duu} and put the result in LU,
> > while simultaneously moving {lu} into a new selmao that yields a
> > selbri.
> I'm not sure why you want {lu} to yield a selbri. What would be the
> place structure of {lu mi broda le zarci}? Something like 'x1 is an
> utterance of "mi broda le zarci"'?

Yes.

> Why is that better as a selbri?

Because there are many such utterances. That's why {mlatu} is a selbri
rather than a sumti - because there are many cats.

I'm not replying to your questions about {sio}, because I no longer wish
to defend it.

I agree with your remarks re. "whether"/{jei}.

> > {lii} was, I believe, introduced at the request of someone whoAd had
> > their leg amputated but still experienced the leg.
> Is {li'i} then about the human nervous system and how it can fool the
> brain?

Not necessarily. The point was that {da lii broda} doesn't entail
{da nu broda}. Don't take that as a defence of the necessity of {lii}.

> > I guess you could say {mi lifri lo dahi nu pada tuple mi} or
> > {mi sizlifri liduu pada tuple mi}, where "sizlifri" means "have
> > an experience that one would have if state-of-affairs x2 obtained".
> Right, it's a matter of what predicate to use, not a matter for the
> abstraction. It would be silly to use {li'i} only with {lifri}
> anyway. Can it be used with some other predicate?

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

---
And