From - Tue Feb 20 14:58:49 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 TAA01288 for ; Thu, 15 Feb 1996 19:07:05 -0500 Message-Id: <199602160007.TAA01288@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 252F9B80 ; Thu, 15 Feb 1996 18:09:00 -0500 Date: Thu, 15 Feb 1996 19:46:48 +0000 Reply-To: ucleaar Sender: Lojban list From: ucleaar Subject: Re: *old response to And on fuzzy proposals X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 2160 > >> To which I'll add > >> sei li {quantifier} ninjetnu [se'u] > >> which can be attached to ja'a, je'a, na, na'e, and a bunch of other > >> things as needed, requires no grammar change, but does require agreement > >> on the appropriate lujvo (which need no be ninjetnu). > >... and has completely the wrong semantics, so is not what is wanted at > >all. {sei} adds metalinguistic comment. It does not override semantics > >of jaa, nae or whatever. It does not work in subordinate bridi. > 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. 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}. > Attaching to a construct (x is the degree of truth) similarly makes a > specific claim about the truth value. I would probably NOT attach it to > ja'a or na but to "cu". But you can also attach it to an individual > word. And you can also attach it to a subordinate bridi, in which case > it is a claim about the subordinate bridi. OK, but it's an INCIDENTAL, METALINGUISTIC claim. *****We need something that works like {na} and like {nae}.**** If you can show me how we could in principle ditch {na} and {nae} and instead use only {sei} then I'll accept that {sei} will do for fuzz. > >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. > >Ignore the {fiu}, which isn't quite right. > 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. coo, mie and