Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 16:07:52 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199804172007.QAA16794@locke.ccil.org> Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Re: Lojban ML: Syllogism and sophism X-To: jorge@INTERMEDIA.COM.AR X-cc: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu To: John Cowan X-UIDL: d3fceaf00ef885c29e657e6ddf75fccf X-Mozilla-Status: 8011 Status: RO Content-Length: 3863 Lines: 87 >>> Your {le ni ko'a sutra le nu broda >>>cu cenba} is not more specifc about the scale, is it? >> >>Mine did not provide the units, but ni sutra is a speed/velocity and not >>an acceleraion or other measurement. > >Let's say {broda} means "x1 changes its velocity". >Isn't the amount of koha being fast in changing velocity >something like acceleration? Well, the event of changing velocity is acceleration. The amount is the degree of acceleration, yes. >>But the wording of the place structure of mitre etc. specifically indicates >>thatthe x1 is being measured. Thius is not the wording of klani. > >The wording of {mitre} specifically indicates measurement. The wordings >of {grake} and {snidu} do not. .uecai (jaw drops in astonishment). The only reason that the word "measure" appears in mitre's definition is to support the extra place. OTherwise the wordings are identical. >generalize to any other quantity. For example: > > i la djan panzi klani li ci > John is 3 in children type of quantity. > >--More-- > i la djan gerku klani li re > John is 2 in dog type of quantity. > >Or, when the scale is not so obvious, it can be made more explicit: > > i la djan klani li pasexa le ka litru lo ki'otre > John is 176 in the kilometers travelled. > >I don't think we can have different rules for different quantities. Isee what you are trying to do, but I maintain that prior to dikyjvo, we intended to have this done off of ckilu or gradu or a conversion thereof. We expected tha lujvo would be made that would by convention have the mitre-like place structure. Now it happens that klani has that place structure but was intended to have a ni abstraction in the x1, since it was measuring quantities and not the underlying relationships being quantified. It is difficult to argue with your stand, since the starting point of my argument presumes the necessity of ni, which you deny. The only way I see is to at least point out that soemtimes it is relationships and not things being measured. You have taken in your examples that John is being measured, even though in the latter case especially it is clear that it is John's travels that are being measured. The measurement is no more tied to John, the x1 of litru, than it is to the other places of litru connected in this specific event of travelling; you could have put any of them in the x1 of klani by your scheme and not been saying anything different. (e.g., if John had travelled to Paris, your sentence would become la paris. klani li pasexa le ka se litru la djan lo ki'otre Paris is 176 in the kilometers travelled by John via there. where I did the conversion to put Paris in the x1 of the abstraction since I am not sure whether you would want be to put ce'u or soemthig else in the place holder. I would contend that the fact that you can take any sumti from the ka broda in le te klani and put it as le klani then means that le klani is a sumti raising from an abstraction of the same sort as le te klani. One solution then would be to just use the leka abstraction in x1, but this leaves the x3 place of klani unfilled and possibly superfluous/redundant. >on't think we can have different rules for different quantities. >If the x1 of mitre can be either "John" or "John's height", then >both should be acceptable as the x1 of klani as well. You just >have to make sure that the te klani is a scale appropriate for >measuring whatever you put in x1. The reason we can use John or John's height in mitre is because if we use John, the height is going to be made explicit in the direction place. Of course I r4eacognize that usage will have John's weight as well as John being measured in kiltygrake (ignoring the weight mass distinction). But I am not sure this is a Good Thing to be encouraged. lojbab