From nicholas@uci.edu Fri Aug 24 15:52:27 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: nicholas@uci.edu X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2); 24 Aug 2001 22:52:27 -0000 Received: (qmail 20397 invoked from network); 24 Aug 2001 22:52:27 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by l9.egroups.com with QMQP; 24 Aug 2001 22:52:27 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO e4e.oac.uci.edu) (128.200.222.10) by mta1 with SMTP; 24 Aug 2001 22:52:27 -0000 Received: from localhost (nicholas@localhost) by e4e.oac.uci.edu (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id PAA19760; Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:52:27 -0700 (PDT) X-Authentication-Warning: e4e.oac.uci.edu: nicholas owned process doing -bs Date: Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:52:27 -0700 (PDT) X-Sender: To: Cc: Nick NICHOLAS Subject: ce'u: the story so far Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From: Nick NICHOLAS X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 10064 So. du'u: by default, no ce'u; blank places are zo'e. Bound ka --- by which I mean (linguistic jargon) ka subcategorised for by the selbri, or (Lojban jargon) the ce'u is filled by another sumti of the same selbri: by default one ce'u, preferrably no more than two ce'u. Necessarily at least one ce'u. If there's no ce'u there, read one in (best guess: ke'a-style). If there is one there, assume the other places are just zo'e. This much is established and solid, I claim, through synergy of xorxes and And (and an exemplary combination of usage and rigor --- which I'd say combines hardlinerism and naturalism, but not everyone necessarily will). Being settled, it can be incorporated in a lesson. Now the outstanding stuff. Lojbab wants (and explains remarkably poorly) a protaean ka. This ka would not be a bound ka. It would be speaking of ka in the abstract --- as in, I presume, {mi tavla le ka gerku} (tavla does not expect leka any more than anything else as its x2.) I will thus call this a free ka. Initially, Lojbab wants it with no ce'u, because he's not interested in any places. When it's pointed out that ka needs to have ce'u by definition, or it's not a property --- pc reformulates it to: all places are ce'u (so no place is made more interesting than any other.) Other Lojbanists (Nick certainly, I *think* John, and xorxes) don't understand at all why you'd want to do that. And proposes treating bound and free ka the same --- making both all-ce'u. This raises howls of protest by Nick, xorxes, and xod. And says "well, then ka is always one-or-two-ce'u, and Lojbab's protean-ka becomes si'o" There is much rejoicing, because Nick and xorxes (and rob, right?) now feel they *understand* si'o, and Free ka, and that they are the same thing. (i.e., the point of Free ka = si'o is that, by default, you're concentrating only on the essence of the *selbri*, and the actual values of the places are immaterial. See my parable for irreverent illustration.) PC does not understand si'o that way, and protests what he thinks is a capricious toying with abstractions. Nick at this point would like to invoke the {fa'a} principle. (This is one for the wiki, but I won't post it there right now.) For those of you that remember the issue, which also arose from the lessons: * Robin.TR, Nick and xorxes independently assumed fa'a (as opposed to mo'ifa'a) said what the directionality of the bridi event is * Lojbab (after many abortive attempts at communication) said no, it's position, like all the other FAhA * At this point, Nick yields, compelled by the analogy with the other FAhA * Someone (Jorge? Nick?) says "but how are we supposed to know what it means?" * Lojbab (and I'm sure he's regretting this now) says "Well, John and I know what it means." * xorxes calls him on this. "No. If you're the only people who know what it means, and don't tell anyone else, then everyone else will work out on their own what it means, and their usage is what will prevail." Nick ardently wants {fa'a} to be about location, to maintain the cohesion of FAhA. Likewise (being a hardliner) he'd rather a Dictionary fascistically settle these things, whether by example phrase or logical formula --- or preferably both. But on {si'o}, he calls out pc: if pc is the only one who knows what {si'o} is, then other Lojbanists are going to go ahead and construe {si'o} how they want, and their usage will prevail. You now have two or three Lojbanists who say "Aha! So *that*'s what {si'o} is about!" This genie is unlikely to go back into the bottle. Nick contends (and I think I'm echoing Adam here, but I'm not sure) that free {ka} is bogus, and that Lojbab is confusing "property" (of specific places) with "quality" (which concentrates only on the selbri, I claim). Once {ce'u} was introduced into the picture, he contends, {ka} is about properties, not qualities. Qualities are {du'u}, or {si'o}. Free {ka}, like bound {ka}, should by default be assumed to be a property of just one thing. If, as someone here constructively suggested (maybe Lojbab, maybe Rob), you want to have a special "metalinguistic mode of discourse", in which {ka} *become* by default qualities (all-ce'u) rather than properties (one-ce'u) --- then go ahead. That's the thing about pragmatic conventions: they're defeasible. But since many other Lojbanists will see {ka} and think property rather than quality, it's your responsibility to make the reader realise that, where you're leaving {ka} places blank, assume they're *all* {ce'u} in this text. (Or, put all the ce'u in, as others have suggested.) Nick also sticks by his simplistic (but used in the Lessons) dichotomy: {nu} is something that happens (or may happen) in the world; {du'u} is something you hold in your head. (I don't give a damn whether the {du'u} is truth-conditionally propositional or not. This may be an error of mine.) To his simplistic way of thinking, if a {si'o} isn't something you hold in your head, he doesn't know what is. Nick also now thinks the battle over Free {ka} vs. {si'o} is not as important as the battle he lost to Adam, when he (I) was trying to conflate Free {ka} and Bound {ka} (by filling places.) I claim that we have enough consensus about Bound {ka} --- the really important {ka}, the one the gismu list *forces* you to use --- that he can write something constructive in the lessons. -- == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == == Nick Nicholas, Breathing {le'o ko na rivbi fi'inai palci je tolvri danlu} nicholas@uci.edu -- Miguel Cervantes tr. Jorge LLambias