Message-Id: <199602101547.RAA08790@xiron.pc.helsinki.fi>
Date:         Sat, 10 Feb 1996 10:44:52 -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:      *old response on semantics of CAhA
To: Veijo Vilva <veion@XIRON.PC.HELSINKI.FI>
Content-Length: 7056
Lines: 154

>From: ucleaar <ucleaar@UCL.AC.UK>
>Subject:      Re: tech:opaque
>> &: should we propose that to CAhE we add two cmavo for "true of the
>> real world" and "true not necessarily of the real world", with the
>> former being the default?
>> pc: In fact, we have those already, _ca'a_ and  _ka'e_.  Maybe we
>> need something explicitly about stories (my list still has _ci'a_
>> free, but is badly out of date, I suspect)
>
>I would welcome a discussion on the meaning of the members of CAhA.  I
>realize that there is a brief one in TENSE.TXT, but, as I recall, it
>rather takes for granted that an English speaker will understand them by
>their glosses.
>
>  ca'a CAhA  actually is          actuality/ongoing event
>  ka'e CAhA  innately capable of  innate capability; possibly unrealized
>  nu'o CAhA  can but has not      can but has not; unrealized potential
>  pu'i CAhA  can and has          can and has; demonstrated potential
>

pc may disagree with me (and correct me) but my understanding of these was:

ca'a the bridi is true in the tense space indicated by the current tense
(default space-time-reference = right now)

ka'e the bridi is innately a property of (each of?) its sumti, even if
it has not been demonstrated yet.  This is especially useful/important
in writing definitions for things/concepts.

Example:  - a seal is a swimmer; a newborn seal that has never entered
the water (and theoretically could die before entering the water) is
still a swimmer in that seals have an innate capability to swim.

Likewise, a definition of an amphibian is ka'e vasxu loi vacri .a loi
djacu - they can breath either air or water.  But there will be a time
early in their lives when they will not yet have none both; still this
does not mean that they are not yet amphbians %^)

mi ka'e kancu fi li paki'oki'o

I am innately capable of counting to 1 million, that being a number
countable within my normal expected lifespan, and yet I haven't done so,
and am not likely to do so

On the other hand, this is not any unrestrained invoking other universes
I cannot say that mi ka'e viska lo {unicorn}.

pu'o says that the bridi was true at some time in the past of the
current tense (i.e. pu) and that the capability to continue or again do
so is still extant having been demonstrated by the earlier occurance.
So maybe it is puca'ajecaka'e.  It also is most useful for definitional
purposes.

nu'o is ka'ejenaipu'ojenaica'a and my examples above for ka'e would also
be true for nu'o.  Again, I think this is appropriate for definitional
contexts.

>So far as I can make sense of these, they mean something like the
>following:
>  kae = is true in some world(s) (but maybe not this one)
>  pui = is true in some world(s), including this one
>  nuo = is true in some world(s), but not this one
>There may also be an epistemic component - an explicit "as far as I know";
>let me, for a while, assume that there is.

I think this understanding is orthogonal to mine.

If pc agrees with me as to this having been the intent, I would welcome
clearer explanations.


>Iain:
>> > pc:
>> > Actually, I think that virtually all opacity is bridi subordination,
>> > but that some cases of subordination are encapsulated in lexical
>> > items, so that -- to take an English example which is relatively
>> > safe  -- "hunt" has in reality the same structure as "intends/desires
>> > that ... TAKE ---", where the ... is filled by the subject of "hunt"
>> > and the --- by the object, which is thus subordinated in an
>> > intentional context.
>> Sure, you can define lexical items that way, but I reckon what you end
>> up with is no longer a predicate - it's some other kind of operator,
>
>Whether or not you're right, it still seems to me that that is what
>"hunt" means.  So if {kalte} is a gismu, and it means "hunt", then it
>means "x1 try for it to be the case that x1 'takes' x2".
>
>> one whose arguments cannot be fully interpreted (as referring to
>>  anything), but must be treated in some other fashion.
>
>That doesn't follow.  We seem to be agreed that x2 of kalte is
>quantified in the same prenex as x1 ("Ex Ey, x try for it to be the case
>that x 'takes' y").

I am not sure what this argument is, but I believe that x1 hunting x2
includes x1 believing that x2 is huntable and hence existant in the
world, but does NOT require that x2 actually exist.  I won't pretend to
know how this is handled logically.

>> &: Are we sure that {da tua de broda} is equivalent to {da zou da broda
>> loi suu de zou de coe}, rather than to {da de zou da broda loi suu de
>> coe}? The definition of {tua} implies this.
>> pc:
>> Implies which (pronoun reference)?
>
>Implies that {da tua de broda} is equivalent to {da zou da broda loi suu
>de zou de coe} (rather than to {da de zou da broda loi suu de coe}).

The answer is that scope was never defined. tu'a (and jai) are
naturalistic abbreviations for exact logical structures that acknowledge
the existance of those structures without conveying the details.  If you
do "tu'ade" you have no idea how this fits with prenexes.

If you want to speak pure predicate logic, then you leave out alrge
quantities of Lojban grammar that are intended to ignore some such
questions.

>> I take it that in _tu'a de_ _de_ is evaluated in the possibly remote
>> world of  _tu'a de_ not the nearer one of _da broda_. But I am not
>> *sure* that it it is meant to -- any flakey thing seems possible these
>> days.
>
>I take it thus, too, and am similarly unsure. If John doesn't know the
>answer, then presumably it remains to be decided.

It doesn't need to be decided.  If you care, use explicit prenexes and
abstractions.

>I've hitherto thought that nu-thingies are situations, and duu-thingies
>are propositions/not-necessarily-real-states-of-affairs.  And everyone
>has seemed to me to misuse/overuse nu, and underuse duu.  Now, though,
>it occurs to me that maybe nu-thingies are states of affairs - "way(s)
>the panchronically viewed world is", and duu-thingies are their
>intensional propositional counterparts.

I'm not sure I understand "opaque", but I see du'u abstractions as
opaque versions of nu - relationships that are associated with some text
statement (to me a "proposition" is a text statement, but I have noidea
if thatis correct terminology either).

>As for whether {da nu} entails {da fasnu} [assuming that states are
>fasnu too], I had always assumed it did, but John tells me it doesn't.
>I think I am gradually coa grocking what nu is supposed to mean, but am
>not wholly sure yet.  I thought {nu cinba} meant "a kiss", but I am
>suspecting that it instead is more like "that there is a kiss" (so by my
>original understanding {ci nu cinba} would make perfect sense as "three
>kisses", but by my new understanding it would make little sense - "3
>facts that there is a kiss"????).  The term "event (abstraction)" really
>throws me.  It would be much safer to use a lojban word.

How about "3 kissings", which in most peoples' minds is quite close to
one sense of the ambiguous "3 kisses".

lojbab