Date: Wed, 17 Dec 1997 12:10:23 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712171710.MAA28519@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Robin Turner Sender: Lojban list From: Robin Turner Subject: Re: category errors in sumti X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan Status: OR X-Mozilla-Status: 0011 Content-Length: 1468 X-From-Space-Date: Wed Dec 17 12:10:25 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU >> >Easy. I could easily create a lujvo or fu`ivla to do the job, >> >but I don't need to: {nanmu} and {ninmu} immediately spring >> >to mind. x1 of nanmu must be male. >> >> In order to be TRUE, yes. In order to make sense, not necessarily. >> The question was whether it was possible for a selbri to have such a >> restricted category of sumti. It is possible to do so, but not all > propositions >> are true. pe'i it depends on the infamous le/lo question. To use the examples from the refgram: le nanmu cu ninmu may be true or false, depending on who or what you have in mind; lo nanmu cu ninmu is described in the refgram is "false", but there seems to be an implication that it is ill-formed, and hence meaningless, rather than false. If this is the case, would the same apply to the following: lo nanmu cu ckaji lo'i ka ninmu (o'acu'izo'o assuming I haven't mangled Lojban grammar yet again)? If so, anything which is semantically ill-formed would therefore be grammatically ill-formed, and therefore meaningless, rather than true or false. ru'a lo nanmu pu ckaji lo'i ka ninmu should be well-formed, it's truth-value depending on factors like whether the person concerned has had a sex-change operation. ta'o what was that Indian logical system which classified propostions into true, false, meaningless or any combination of the three? Robin Turner Bilkent Universitesi, IDMYO, Ankara, Turkey.