Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 11:15:27 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <199712121615.LAA06929@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: la'e X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 6462 X-From-Space-Date: Fri Dec 12 11:15:50 1997 X-From-Space-Address: LOJBAN@CUVMB.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU >> Even if you disagree with that, I don't see what we gain by restricting >> {la'e lu ... li'u} to those meanings that arise from the _inherent_ >> properties of uttering the text, rather than to those meanings that >> arise from any given uttering of the text. > >First off, that would require {lu..li`u} to be a text-token, which may >or may not be a good thing. Gadfly here, who doesn't know why or why not text-tokenhood is a good or bad thing. >But my main objection is that the "inherent meaning" is determinate and >the "noninherent meaning" is indeterminate. I disagree. The inherent meaning is of course often ambiguous. The difference between lu..li'u and lo'u...le'u and zoi .kuot... .kuot. is merely labelling what kind of stuff is in the quote marks. There may be no linguistic meaning at all to the latter two quotes, or there may be a special meaning to certain people under certain circumstances. What is the "inherent meaning" of "Meow" as spoken by my cat, and quoted in Lojban - totally depndent on context. This can then lead us to look at lu ... li'u the same way. What is the inherent meaning of "I love you"? You need to know the values of the pronouns, which will be context dependent. >- based on misunderstandings, which in turn arise from an erroneous >inference of noninherent meaning from inherent meaning. Lojban's >cultural literalism is well-advised, and I think the distinction >should be carried over to the meaning of {la`e}. la'e, like much else in the language, is by the standards of logic quite intellectually sloppy. We know historically that la'e is the inverse of lu'e. We also know historically that lu'e can be any sign that conveys the meaning in question. This suggests that la'e must indicate the/any meaning pointed at by the referent - probably the "in-mind" referent determined by the speaker (per the definition of "le", which is of course JCB's original gadri). You could attach relative clauses to clarify which of possible meanings is intended. >> To those worried about the horribly arcane nature of this discussion, >> we are trying to decide whether {le sedu'u xukau ko'a badri} makes >> sense, as in {mi cusku le sedu'u xukau ko'a badri}, which to me >> means "I say whether she is sad". > >My position is that I don't see how it makes sense if we simply >extrapolate from known cases. But that does not rule out declaring >this a valid usage. It makes sense to me. Indeed anything in Lojban makes sense if the listener can ascribe meaning to it. IMHO, anything in Lojban make EMINENT sense if the listener can ascribe the meaning that the speaker INTENDED. There is no requirement that the semantic analysis of this construct be consistent with the semantic analysis of that construct. Making sense of course has little to do with goodness of Lojban. I could but this paragraph in zoi quotes and it would be valid Lojban and convey the intended meaning, but most would not consider that "good" Lojban. I should note that especially by the previous couple of paragraphs, Jorge's use of "le" on "sedu'u" makes it valid. My analysis, for what little it is worth: "se du'u" is a "text" expression that represents the predication conveyed within the Lojban abstraction where "text" refers to some quotable string. The original use of du'u was for MEX, and the typical content of the abstraction would have been a mathematical equation using "du" (hence the cmavo choice). We coined the cmavo to be able to talk about the kinds of things one wishes to say about mathematical equations - that they are valid, that they are invalid, that they follow from the premises, etc. Once we realized that du'u had effectively the same grammar as "nu" but with a restrcited set of mathematical selbri, we opened it to include talking about all predications in the manner which we might want to talk about an equation. Later it was pointed out to us that some of the things we might say about an equation or predication pertain to the equation itself and some to the form in which the equation/predication was expressed, and du'u gained a second place. If we know what "xukau ko'a badri" means as a Lojban predication, which we must if we can talk about "ledu'u xukau ko'a badri", then "le sedu'u xukau ko'a badri" makes sense. Furthermore, since we use (or at least Jorge uses %^) "ledu'u xukau ko'a badri", and a du'u abstraction is a 2-place predicate, there must by definition be a "le sedu'u xukau ko'a badri" >> >> Then we don't have an automatic way of expanding >> >> {broda le du'u xukau brode}, because it will depend on >> >> the meaning of {broda}. The expansion for {djuno} is >> >> different than the one for {kucli}. >> > >> >That's right. >> >> Not very nice, though. > >The price of having the unexpanded forms is that they don't >all expand in the same way. We agree again. It is useful simply that there be a definite expansion to any given construct. Systematicity to such expansion is a luxury that would cripple the language as a human language. Since you are talking in particular about definitions of brivla, it simply is not practical for any coiner/user of a new brivla to perform the abstruse analysis you guys want to perform in order to expand everything to some kind of ideal logical form. I consider even the Chapter 12 conventions for lujvo-making to be too much analysis (though I accept its usefulness for dictionary purposes at least for helping determine the place strctures of brivla where actual usage does not indicate the users' intent regarding possible unfilled places). But real people are going to coin/borrow brivla like kucli, and use them in presumably intellectually sloppy ways. Since we are in the descriptive phase rather than prescriptive phase of the language, we are constrained to consider these ways valid Lojban if they are well-formed and if they communicate successfully. (I repeat my distinction between "valid" Lojban and "good Lojban", lest we reopen certain ironic topics). ---- lojbab lojbab@access.digex.net Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: ftp.access.digex.net /pub/access/lojbab or see Lojban WWW Server: href="http://xiron.pc.helsinki.fi/lojban/" Order _The Complete Lojban Language_ - see our Web pages or ask me.