Message-Id: <199602291635.LAA13495@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Thu, 29 Feb 1996 12:59:50 -0300
Reply-To: "Jorge J. Llambias" <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>
Sender: Lojban list <LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET>
From: "Jorge J. Llambias" <jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR>
Subject:      Re: Tech: fuzzy: kamkuspe
To:         lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu
Content-Length: 2654

>>>"The paint is fuzzily 2 of 5, where 0/5 is red and 5/5 is yellow."
>>
>>  le cinta cu klani li ji'irefi'umu le kamxunre bi'o le kampelxu
>>  The paint is approximately 2/5 on the ordered interval from red to yellow.
>>
>That looks interesting. I like the use of biho, although it might be
>problematic for a categorical Guttman scale.

I suppose your example could not be categorical, or there would be
no way of knowing what 2/5 was. You said 0/5 is red and 5/5 is yellow.
For a categorical scale we could have, for example, 1/5 for green,
2/5 for blue, 3/5 for pink and 4/5 for black. The only way that giving
only the extremes makes sense is if the scale is ordered, and there is
some more or less natural distribution between the two extremes.

><jihi> is not an accurate
>translation of the technical sense of "fuzzy", which is the sense I meant.

How could this cause misunderstanding? In what situation would saying
{ji'i} lead to confusion?

>Your translation of  <jihi> as "approximately" seems right. Is it OK to use
>cinta or do you need to explicitly say the paint color when you translate
>into lojban?

I prefer to say that the paint measures so and so on the color scale,
rather than that the color of the paint is such and such number on the
scale.

The case is analogous to any other measure word in Lojban. Do you say
{le dargu cu mitre li ki'o} = "the road is in meters 1000" or
{le dargu kamymitre cu mitre li ki'o} = "the road length is in meters
1000"? I think that the first is the correct one, and in any case it is
how usage has proceded. Another example: {mi nanca li reso} = "I am
in years 29" and not "my age is in years 29".

In other words, the way Lojban handles measurements is to put the object
as the first argument and the number as the second argument, not the
property of the object as the first argument.

>Do you need to abstract the colors, which are already
>abstractions?

They are not already abstractions. {le xunre} is "the red object",
not "the color red". You do need to abstract them to give the scale.

>How about:
>
><le cinta selskari ko refi'umu fiuhi le xunre bi'o le pelxu>
>
>"The color of the paint is fuzzily 2 of 5 on the ordered interval from red
>to yellow."

(ko -> ku)

I can't fully comment, since I am not clear on what is the place structure
of refi'umu fi'u'i. But {le xunre bi'o le pelxu} is "the ordered interval
that goes from the red object to the yellow one", most likely not a color
scale at all.

(NB: I suppose that the proposed cmavo is fi'u'i, not fiu'i, which must
violate some morphology rule or another. If fiu'i were allowed, how come
that the simple fiu is not?)

Jorge