From arosta@uclan.ac.uk Wed Sep 26 10:51:45 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: arosta@uclan.ac.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_3_2_2); 26 Sep 2001 17:51:45 -0000 Received: (qmail 57219 invoked from network); 26 Sep 2001 17:51:44 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l7.egroups.com with QMQP; 26 Sep 2001 17:51:44 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO com1.uclan.ac.uk) (193.61.255.3) by mta3 with SMTP; 26 Sep 2001 17:51:44 -0000 Received: from gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk by com1.uclan.ac.uk with SMTP (Mailer); Wed, 26 Sep 2001 18:29:17 +0100 Received: from DI1-Message_Server by gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk with Novell_GroupWise; Wed, 26 Sep 2001 19:00:20 +0100 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.2 Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 18:59:42 +0100 To: lojban Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: noxemol ce'u Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline From: And Rosta X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 11073 >>> 09/25/01 10:27pm >>> #Both the mother-of function and the property of having a mother are=20 #functions, one to mothers and one to propositions.=20=20 [...] # # #And again, what you are missing is that that is a function which gives=20 #propositions (as the {du'u} versions says) while we are talking (well, I a= m;=20 #you are confused) about a function that gives individuals. You are right. I did not understand what you meant by 'function'. I don't know how to refer to functions in Lojban, but I might be able to form an opinion if you could give some examples from ordinary English where we refer to functions. Or is it something that comes up only in technical logical and mathematical discussion? For example, are 'age', 'height', 'place of birth' functions? If so, then I think I can see how you ended up talking about functions, for it does seem that in current Lojban, {tu'odu'u ma kau mamta ce'u} would be the=20 normal way of talking about the mother-of function.=20 You must have been through this already, and ended up disagreeing with it, but by my limited understanding so far, those look to be the ways of talking about functions... #bigness =3D tu'odu'u ce'u barda # #is that not an example of ^xFx?> # #It is indeed. And the point is? The request was for an example of ^xf= (I=20 #am writing a paper for my website on the language of Logic and how it rela= tes=20 #to the logical language to remind or inform people who get into these=20 #discussions just what it is we are talking about.) Okay. That could be helpful. Your < > notation didn't correspond to any notation I am familiar with. # # #I don't find this particularly persuasive, since it is inside out. We hav= e=20 #these critters well-defined in subordinate positions and not as main claus= es,=20 #so we can't say that the main clause meaning stymies the subordinate meani= ng.=20 # We might say that it is hard to imagine a main clause meaning that would = not=20 #stymie the subordinate clause meaning, and that may be true of {kea}.=20=20 Put it that way, then. It's what I meant. #I am=20 l#ess sure about {ce'u}. And, of course, we know exactly how it works for= =20 #interrogatives, which are more or less related to {ce'u} (scope aside). = =20 ??? #But arguing from what we hard a hard time imagining to "it ain't so" is ge= nerally=20 #an awfully weak argument, since it collapses so easily to someone with a b= it=20 #more imagination. That is not how my argument works. # # #Well, I don't think that is historically accurate about how {ke'a} and {ce= 'u}=20 #were selected=20 ke'a predates my involvement in Lojban, but throughout my era it has=20 always been well understood as a resumptive pronoun, in which case my representation seems appropriate. 'Binding' here does not mean quantifier-variable binding or coreference-binding; it means that NOI is the intermediary whereby its modificand is coreferential to the ke'a. As for ce'u, that was inceived well into my era, so I think I can safely assert that ce'u was seen as one of the arguments of the relation denoted by the ka phrase. I concede that my use of the term 'binding' was a bit loose. #nor do I know of any devices of the sort you mention (other=20 #than {zo'u} constructions like the ones I used -- but those give the wrong= =20 #sorts of things, as ordinary bound variables seem likely to do), still the= re=20 #could be such a system, and, indeed, the Lojban system may be one such. B= ut=20 #that is not specified anywhere that I can find and the use of "lambda=20 #variable" cuts against it in the case of {ce'u} (less so for {kea} where t= he=20 #binding is by the gadri -- though this is never said outright).=20=20 I am not competent to extrapolate the consequences of defining '"ce'u" as "lambda variable". But I would take that as a rough description, not as a definition.=20 #Okay. Well then, yes, in a sense I want ke'a and ce'u to be sometimes #transitive and sometime intransitive. But I think it is fairer to say that #I want them to always be intransitive relative to the 'operator' that #binds them, and transitive relative to everything else. da-series #variables work exactly the same way.> # #This presupposes that {ka} et a few cetera bind {ce'u}, but, aside from th= e=20 #fact that {ka} requires {ce'u} and some others permit it (maybe even requi= re=20 #it, but I don't think so -- {ka} really is, as I have said all along,=20 #peculiar here), I don't see that it binds {ce'u} in the way that LE binds= =20 #{ke'a}. On the contrary, {ce'u} seems to contain its own binding operator= =20 #(the lambda), as witness the fact that it is different each time it occurs= =20 #(cf. {ma}, which is bound by nothing but itself -- and similarly all the=20 #interrogatives).=20=20 Perhaps I can rephrase to say: ce'u is an argument of ka (tho not a syntactic sumti). That is, ce'u is the way that arguments of ka are expressed linguistically. --And.