Message-Id: <199602101538.KAA10965@locke.ccil.org>
Date:         Sat, 10 Feb 1996 10:06:10 -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: steven on john's fuzz moot
To: John Cowan <cowan@LOCKE.CCIL.ORG>
Status: OR
Content-Length: 2328

>> I am seeking a general formalism that will describe the fuzziness of a
>> grammer structure, such as a selbri, rather than a fuzzy formalism whose
>> scope is the entire bridi.
>Are you asking for too much. If there's a fuzzy operator for bridi and
>selbri, what else do you want?


I can think of one - fuzzy numerical values.

This is why I don't really like the "xi" convention.  But "sei"
metalinguistic phrases, just like "xi" can attach to almost all  significant
grammatical units as a free modifier, but without the possible
conflicts in convention with other meanings that "xi" subscripts have.

In cases where there are no conlflicts, as perhaps je'a and ja'a are,
the xi convention may work as a short cut, one of many possible ways of
expressing the same thing.

>> Supose I use And's experimental fuzzy operator, but with the <xoi>
>> *before* the grammer structure it is to modify, that is with
>> structure:
>> x1 is <fuzzy number> on scale/in quality x2
>> <mi xoi pinomu blanu>
>> "I am fuzzily 0.05 blue."

Lojban grammar marks arbitrary grammatical structures after the fact rather
than before.  When you hit a terinator, you know you are done with the
construct; otherwise you do not know the eventual scope when you start a
 construct, because of the possibility of afterthought scope changes.

>> This would be idiomatic and we would have to adopt the convention that
>> murse used in this way would be a fuzzifier. We could come up with a
>> new gismu for fuzzy and do the same thing. (I suggested <fudji>, but
>> there is resistance to new gismu. I used <kerfa>, but some people
>--More--
>> thought this was a malglico. It doesn't seem much worse to me than
>> <murse>, but some people thought <murse> was better.) I could use a
>> fuhivla, I suppose, like <lojyfuzis>
>
>You really think "hair" is as apt as "twilight"? Anyway, I see why
>you wanted {fudji}, or felt {murse} must be idiomatic in lujvo, and
>the unfeasability of this confirms that a lujvo approach to fuzziness
>is misguided.

Why must people insist on being so bloody metaphorical.  what is wrong
with "nalsatci" as the critical modifer of the defining tanru.  Or "ckilu"
for Guttman scales.  "ckilyjetnu"? nalsatcyninjetnu?  You don;t need to
invoke fur or twilight or chocolate confections to convey the concept.
Sheesh!

lojbab