Message-ID: <347C3CBE.1A4@locke.ccil.org>
Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 10:14:06 -0500
From: John Cowan <cowan@locke.ccil.org>
Organization: Lojban Peripheral
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To: Lojban List <lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: What the *%$@ does "nu" mean?
References: <199711261158.GAA17724@locke.ccil.org>
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la .and. cusku di'e

> No offense to Lojbab, but I find this statement from
> John clearer than what Lojbab has been saying, & it
> would be nice to know whether Lojban Central endorses
> it.

Almost anything anyone says at any time is clearer than
anything lojbab says at every time.  :-)

> So "re nu broda" is just as nonsensical as "re ka broda" and
> "re du`u broda".

Hmm, that does seem to follow.

> I can buy this characterization of {lo}, but I think we must
> recognize that it makes no sense to say {mi viska lo nu broda}.
> One can't see an abstract entity. It is as nonsensical as
> {mi viska lo du`u broda} or {mi viska li re}.

But perhaps one may observe an abstract entity.  I'm not sure.
 
> Personally, I think it unfortunate that it makes no sense to
> say {mi viska lo nu broda}. How *does* one say that one sees
> a token of this event-type? Something like:
> 
>    mi viska lo token-of be lo nu broda

How about "lo sevzi be lo nu broda"?  One of the things "sevzi"
means is "avatar", so "instantiation" can't be too far off.
 
> I really don't see what is gained by having nu be an event-type.
> {xlura} is not a flower-type, and {gerku} is not a dog-type,
> though {se gerku} is. Any context in which {lo nu broda} is
> of utility could probably be equally well served by {lo du`u
> broda}. E.g. instead of {mi djica lo nu broda} - "I desire
> that there be a token of event-type X", you could have
> {mi djica lo du`u broda} - "I desire that it be the case that
> X".

Hmm, that sounds like a reductio.  As I said, I must think further.
 
> > ni'o
> > I think you are correct that in general the Lojban quotation words
> > refer to types rather than tokens, although the notions "type"
> > and "token" are problematic when one refers to complex objects:
> > the token "John loves only John" contains two tokens of "John",
> > but the corresponding type <John loves only John>, does it contain
> > two distinct types of <John>, or is there (as intuition asserts) only
> > one type of <John>?
> 
> That depends on your view of names.

Sorry, I didn't mean to drag in names.  Very well:  in the sentence-type
<The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick.>, are there two distinct
word-types <sixth>, or is that nonsense because there is only
one word-type <sixth>?  Presumably types should contain sub-types,
as tokens unquestionably contain sub-tokens.  If not, what do
complex types contain?

-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan		cowan@ccil.org
			e'osai ko sarji la lojban