Message-Id: <m0tJKoE-0000ZUC@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Sat, 25 Nov 1995 08:37:07 -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:      misc responses to and
To:           Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 4505
Lines: 97

And:
>Lojbab:
>> (relative phrases can also use ke'a BTW).
>
>How?

da ne semau le ke'a mamta
X, more than X's mother

>> Yes, but the senses of "defined and agreed-upon" in your two claims are
>> not the same.  L means "defined and agreed-upon, explicitly, by the
>> language prescribers" whereas A means "defined and agreed-upon,
>> implicitly, by the speakers of the language".  L means to allow that
>> some PA strings, though without prescribed meaning at present, may come
>> to have meaning, and is at pains not to rule this out by making them
>> ungrammatical.
>
>i.e. the grammar is at present incomplete.  Or:  at present it
>overgenerates, but the language may change so it won't.  My objection to
>this incompletion/overgenerativity still stands.  But I understand why
>you feel disinclined to remedy it.

Be careful what you call "grammar".  I would say that the "semantics"
remains unprescribed. which is true about MOST of the language.

In the case of MEX, there are a lot of things generable that no sane
Lojban speaker would generate.  However a mathematician might (slur
intended %^).

The semantics of the MEX construct would undoubtedly depend on the
branch of mathematics and the immediate context.  For example, to a
mathematician "+" means something different in Boolean arithmetic than
in standard arithmetic.  But Lojban might use the same word for plus in
both cases because the mathematicians use the same symbol, and we are
NOT about to reform mathematical expression.

"345 base 2" is as far as I know meaningless under every branch of
mathematics, since base 2 allows only the digits 0 and 1. But I doubt
that anyone will say that it is ungrammatical to read it off in English.
Lojban also allows such garbage to be generated, and because it is
generalized a little differently than English, it may allow
more/less/different kinds of garbage than English MEX does.

>John:
>> > My objection to {nu} is that really the event is an argument of the
>> > bridi, so {jai fau broda} is truer to the meaning.
>> This was discussed a few years ago, I think.  "fau" means
>> "with-associated-event", where the event is typically some different
>> event from that expressed by the bridi.
>
>Strictly speaking, the bridi does not express an event. At best it
>implies one.
>
>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.

Do you have a reason for this, or is it just stubbornness.  "fau" was
put in to match natlang constructs such as addressing a letter with an
event rather than a location.  Or possibly a will (in the event of ...).
Most of the BAIs have some kind of origin in a natlang usage (alas
usually English ones), and were originally defined to support natlang
usage.  JCB still has this, whereas Lojban evolved towards rationalizing
use of BAI with place structures so that you use "semau" and "sekai" in
Lojban rather than "mau" and "kai" for the most common usage.  But "fau"
and some other words must be usable for their original purpose, or we
might as well leave them out of the language.

>John:
>> Here you may have a better case; it is probably true that for any
>> <bridi>, "lo ka <bridi>" expresses a unique object, and with the
>>  new "me" we can recover the predicate if we want it.  However,
>> uniformity of abstractors is probably more important.
>
>Uniformity of abstractors, if it is distinct from sticking with the
>status quo, is a positively bad thing.  As for sticking with the status
>quo, most people feel it is more important, but I'd like to assure Markl
>that I don't:

I disagree with John.  There can be many properties of a relationship,
especially a multiplace one.  The relationship between x1 and x2 of a 5
place predicate is a property of the relationship, but not the only one.

>> "Physical" is a sticky notion. There is no problem with "nu" objects
>> that aren't actualized, like "le nu le djordj. .ualas. cu merko gugde
>> ralju" even though George Wallace wasn't ever U.S. President.
>
>There is every problem with such nu objects.  {nu la djordj ualas cu
>merko gugde ralju} is false.

Why is falsehood a problem?  Lojban is NOT the mythical language where
it is impossible to utter falsehoods.  And it is certainly meaningful to
be able to refer to non-occuring events.  To phrase your text one way:

le nu la djordj ualas cu merko gugde ralju cu na fasnu

lojbab