From mark@kli.org Sun Aug 22 09:48:49 1999 X-Digest-Num: 218 Message-ID: <44114.218.1170.959273825@eGroups.com> Date: 22 Aug 1999 16:48:49 -0000 From: mark@kli.org Subject: Re: Lojban analogies and kennings X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 1170 >Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 01:32:00 -0700 >From: Ron Hale-Evans > >From: Ron Hale-Evans > >A central part of Kennexions is forming "kennings," which are an >ancient Norse poetic form based on analogies. Example: > > E1. psychology : mind :: biology : body > > E2. Psychology is to the mind as biology is to the body. > > E3. psychology = mind biology > >E2 above is a restatement of E1 in ordinary English. E3 shows a >kenning ("mind biology") which is a poetic restatement of the word >"psychology." So it's sort of making those SAT analogy questions, poetically? >As a small step, I've been trying to figure out how to write >analogies in Lojban. Assuming that "biology" is "ji'eske" and >"psychology" is "menske" (please correct my lujvo), then could the >above be rendered thus? > > L1. menske : menli :: ji'eske : xadni OK, this is a hybrid of Lojban with English/mathematical notation. As such, is cool. I suppose one could do this strictly in Lojban mekso (which is not my area of strength--and probably isn't anyone's area of strength--so check me on this): li mo'e loi menske pa'i mo'e loi menli du li mo'e loi ji'eske pa'i loi xadni the-number (sumti-to-operand) the-mass-of mind-science ratio-operator (sumti-to-operand) the-mass-of mind equals the-number (sumti-to-operand) the-mass-of life-science ratio-operator (sumti-to-operator) the-mass-of body Which does parse... but I don't know if it's right. I went for {mo'e} instead of {ni'e} because {ni'e} is related more to quantity stuff, and that's not what we're after here. I thought {loi} would be the right gadri: minds and bodies and sciences are here viewed as masses. Any comments? > L2. .i ke menske tai menli ke'e tai ke ji'eske tai xadni ke'e > > L3. .i menske du menli ji'eske > >I'm pretty sure L3 is ungrammatical; what's wrong with it? And how >about L2? (I know that L1 is completely ungrammatical; it's just >shorthand.) You need to learn about gadri, articles. Lojban selbri are predicates, analogous to verbs; they aren't nouny. In order to make them act like *things*, arguments to predicates, you have to abstract them with an article. There are a bunch of 'em; I won't go into the details. But briefly, if {klama} means "x1 goes/comes to x2 from x3 via x4 using x5", then {lo klama} is "one that comes, a comer [to somewhere, from somewhere, via something, using something]" (the other places can be added in, but must use special grammar to do so). And {lo se klama} is "a destination [gone to by someone from somewhere...]" and so on. More commonly you'll see {le} instead of {lo}; I used {loi} above: lo: something (or things) that really is/are ... le: something(s) which I, the speaker, consider to be ... loi: (some part of) the mass of things which are ... lei: a mass of things which I consider to be ... lo'i: the set of things which are ... le'i: the set of things which I consider to be ... There are also {la}, {lai}, and {la'i} which work for things *named* whatever. The distinction between {lo} and {le} is subtle but important; {lo} is veridical and non-specific. {le} is non-veridical (I can refer to something as "that woman over there" even if it isn't really a woman and not be incorrect) and also can be/is more specific: it's the one(s) I'm thinking of right at the moment (so it's a better translation for English "the", while {lo} is closer to English "a/an", though the words are so vague in English you can't count on that). I don't really follow L2 at all; I'm pretty lost there. But you could say something like lei menske du lei menly ji'eske for L3. Or maybe something with event abstractors? Erk, I'm getting to complicated. Any help? ~mark