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Re: [bpfk] Re: O HAI I FIXT UR LODGEBANZ
Jorge Llambías, On 16/10/2010 16:50:
On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 12:33 PM, And Rosta<and.rosta@gmail.com> wrote:
The satisfactoriness of "lo du'u Q kau zo'u" might depend on whether
idiomaticity is compatible with Lojban principles. If not compatible, then a
new construction is called for.
A bigger problem may be that it only works for "ma kau", but not for
"mo kau ", "xo kau", etc, which can neither be put in a prenex by
themselves nor can they be assigned to a variable.
Hmm...
I may well be missing some key consideration, but the problem you describe here seems more unfortunate than fatal. My reasoning is as follows.
Take _xo_, for example. In an ideal world, one would like there to be not only _xo_ but also a bindable variable variety of PA, so that one can say things like "For every cukta x mei, x is greater than 5" = "every group of books had a cardinality of more than 5", and "Ex nanmu x mei & ninmu x mei" = "There were as many men as there were women", and so forth. Instead, to do this sort of stuff you have to find a method that circumvents the need for PA -- a construction that means the same but uses KOhA instead. And whatever that method is, it could also be used instead of _xo_. _Xo (kau/pau)_ would remain merely a shorthand for that circumlocutory construction in cases where the variable is bound in the innermost prenex (for _xo kau_) or the outermost prenex within the scope of a rogative illocutionary operator (for _xo (pau)_).
To recast that more succinctly, the problem of interrogatives reduces to a subtype of the problem of bindable variables. A solution to the larger problem is needed, and that solution will generalize to its subtypes.
Of course, there are additional considerations of elegance, avoidance of verboseness, etc., but you can't address those additional considerations without creating new words and constructions.
--And.
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