From cowan  Sat Mar  6 22:45:53 2010
Subject: Re: RET: left factoring
To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu (Lojban List)
From: cowan
Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 12:46:37 -0500 (EST)
In-Reply-To: <199512151146.GAA23610@locke.ccil.org> from "Paulo Barreto" at Dec 15, 95 06:29:00 am
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la paulos. cusku di'e

> I'm facing the problem of "left factoring" sumti of the form
> "le broda brode .e le broda brodi", I mean, something like
> "le broda (brode .e brodi)".
> 
> I don't know if it's possible at all. At first I tried
> "le broda brode je brodi", which associates correctly, but doesn't
> mean the same thing. Any ideas? (Please, NO metaphysical discussion
> on connectives!)

Sorry, but there's simply no avoiding it.

1)	mi viska le nanmu .e le ninmu

means that I saw a man and I saw a woman, but

2)	mi viska le nanmu je ninmu

means that I saw something(s) which is/are a man+woman.  (Presumably there
are no such things, but "le" saves the day.)  You just can't reliably
reduce something like Example 1 to something like Example 2.  A nearer
approach is:

3)	mi viska le nanmu ja ninmu

which says that you saw something(s) which is/are men or women, but fails
to capture the point of Example 1 that you saw two (or more) things differently
described.

This is why tanru logical connectives can't be expanded outwards into 
full bridi.

However, logical connectives split only up to the next bridi level:

4)	mi jinvi le nu ga
		loi jmiva cu zvati la jupiter.
		gi loi jmiva cu na zvati la jupiter.
	I believe that either life exists on Jupiter or it doesn't.

is true, but

5)	ga mi jinvi le nu loi jmive cu zvati la jupiter.
		gi mi jinvi le nu loi jmive cu na zvati la jupiter.
	Either I believe that life exists on Jupiter,
		or I believe that it doesn't.

is false, since I have no evidence either way.

The question of what happens to logical connectives within selbri

6)	le citka be le mlatu .e le gerku cu zvati le kumfa

is still open, I think.

-- 
John Cowan					cowan@ccil.org
		e'osai ko sarji la lojban.