Message-Id: <199602161325.IAA10238@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Fri, 16 Feb 1996 07:01:03 -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:      Re: *old response to And on fuzzy proposals
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Content-Length: 2230

>> Metalinguistic bridi can override ANYTHING.  The classic example is
>> "sei ti jitfa" embedded in a sentence (this sentence is a lie).
>
>where {ti} refers to {dei}, I presume.

Correct.  Late nite "brain fart".

>At any rate, you are completely mistaken about metalinguistics. They
>cannot override everything. For example, {do jinvi kuau la djan cu
>sei dei/ti jitfa seu gerku} does not mean {you believe that John
>is not a dog}. To say that, you use {na}.

kuauau?
Oh yeah that is "lenu
or is it lonu? or lesedu'u  Whatever.  i think I know what you mean.

It means "it is false that {You believe that John is a dog}
It also happens that
do na jinvi kuau la djan cu gerku
also has the same English translation.  I do not know whether they are
semantically identical - just indistingushable in English, hence I
do not know how to talk about any potential differences.

Clarifying on the "brain fart", "ti" was wrong, not sloppy in the sei
statement.

>> >They (the ones I understand) are of no use.
>> Any comments on the truth or falsity of the currnet bridi or components
>> therof areexactly what we had in mind for metaplingusitics.
>
>Fair enough. But we are seeking ways to do fuzzy "negation", not
>ways to comment on the truth of the current bridi.

Thus you appear to claim that begation is something other than a comment
on the truth of the current bridi.  I do not see any difference.

>> The interpretation of a string of digits, of which fi'u is one, is a
>> matter of convention, so it is impossible to say that it is "not right".
>
>It is not right because {fiu} is the fraction slash. The "of" in
>"5th of 7" is not a fraction slash.

The interpretation of "5/7"
in some contexts is the rational number "five/sevenths", and in other
contexts "5th of 7".  Lojban does not prescribe either as dominating.
Indeed the semantics of MEX is largely unexplired and is known to have
complications that violate the apparent grammar (e.g. when precedence
of operations takes precedence over apparent grammar, that is the
mathematician taking a short cut - we cannot proscribe it because Lojban
Mex does not proscribe mathematical jargon, which is ambiguous and
self-contradictory in the absence of conventions.

lojbab