From lojbab@lojban.org Wed Feb 21 12:05:03 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: lojbab@lojban.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_0_4); 21 Feb 2001 20:05:02 -0000 Received: (qmail 79862 invoked from network); 21 Feb 2001 20:05:02 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l10.egroups.com with QMQP; 21 Feb 2001 20:05:02 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO stmpy-5.cais.net) (205.252.14.75) by mta3 with SMTP; 21 Feb 2001 21:06:06 -0000 Received: from bob.lojban.org (ppp40.net-A.cais.net [205.252.61.40]) by stmpy-5.cais.net (8.11.1/8.11.1) with ESMTP id f1LK4tO19968; Wed, 21 Feb 2001 15:04:55 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: <4.3.2.7.2.20010221150126.00b6d280@127.0.0.1> X-Sender: vir1036/pop.cais.com@127.0.0.1 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.2 Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 15:08:37 -0500 To: Nick Nicholas , lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] nilbroda In-Reply-To: References: <4.3.2.7.2.20010216215932.00af0130@127.0.0.1> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 5555 At 03:02 PM 02/19/2001 -0800, Nick Nicholas wrote: > >From: Peter Moulder > > >What about "variadic" selbri like "(nil)du"? How does one know whether > >the last sumti belongs to ni or du? > >Ouch. Very good point. You either >(a) give up and don't admit nildu'o as a lujvo (which is no good); >(b) make nildu'o an exception, and have the ni2 precede the arguments of >du'o --- which leads to untold confusion; Why? We exercise judgement and decide whether to follow the convention, or to make a special case. >(c) leave it as it stands, which is disastrous. How does it stand? >One would say at this point that usage and context would always sort this >out. To which I answer that if I want English, I know where to find it. If >a lujvo has an ambiguous place structure, it has no business being a lujvo. A lujvo never has an ambiguous place structure. There may be ambiguity in the conventions for choosing a place structure, but they are aonly conventions. The book gives guidelines or conventions which we are not obliged to follow when it doesn't make sense to do so. You original lujvo paper, which was abridged into the book, listed a fair number of special case exceptions from the general rules set forth, and Cowan decided that special cases did not need to appear in the book. The reason this topic came up is that it appears that the convention you chose for nil- lujvo does not match what you actually did >(Which would, if anything, go back to (a).) As wishy-washy as pc %^) >I knew there was a reason I wanted those ni2 and traji4 in second position. >Oh well. If there is a reason, then state it, and we then know that under conditions applicable to that reason, there is an exception to the conventions. lojbab -- lojbab lojbab@lojban.org Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273 Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org