From LOJBAN%CUVMB.BITNET@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU Sat Feb 10 11:02:45 1996 Received: from VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (vms.dc.lsoft.com [205.186.43.2]) by locke.ccil.org (8.6.9/8.6.10) with ESMTP id LAA11788 for ; Sat, 10 Feb 1996 11:02:36 -0500 Message-Id: <199602101602.LAA11788@locke.ccil.org> Received: from PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM (205.186.43.4) by VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (LSMTP for OpenVMS v1.0a) with SMTP id 4C267E6D ; Sat, 10 Feb 1996 10:30:44 -0500 Date: Sat, 10 Feb 1996 10:28:57 -0500 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: *old response to and #2 X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 1025 >John: >> > Anyway, to clarify, the syntax {duu} shd have is that it take a bridi >> > and yield a sumti. (LU takes a word string and yields a sumti.) >> That was once the case, actually, although the bridi was semantically >> restricted to mathematical identities. > >How come we lost it? Because Lojban doesn't HAVE semantic restrictions in its grammar. If we do not encode in the YACC grammar that a mathematical bridi is a different kind of animal than a non-mathematical one, then there is no constraint against using it non-mathematically, especially for certain rebellious types %^). It is cumbersome to maintain a YACC-grammatical distinction between the two types of bridi, and I suspect that mathematicians and logicians would say that there IS no essential difference between the two. So if you can see a justification for "du'u" in its present form for mathematical bridi, then you should be willing to accept that it is logical to accept the form for non-mathematical bridi. lojbab