RE: [jboske] Lojbab on tu'o (was: RE: RE: Nick on propositionalism &c

[Robert LeChevalier <lojbab@lojban.org>]

At 04:59 PM 1/13/03 +0000, And Rosta wrote:
> > > > zi'o is appropriate
> > > > if no value makes sense at all as in Cowan's example of an
> > > > untranslatable joke
> > >
> > >That's not really what zi'o means, but I don't want to get into
> > >a discussion about this now. I'm not sure whether you know what
> > >it means and just described it poorly: you said that zi'o catra
> > >is meaningless to you, which isn't a good sign
> >
> > zi'o means what CLL and the cmavo list say it means until/unless the byfy
> > changes it. I'll be satisfied if Cowan (or someone else) gives me a
> > practical example of when one would say zi'o catra, and it would indeed
> > have something to do with catra and not merely morsi binxo
>
> Why must it have something to do with catra and not merely morsi binxo?
> Catra is a 2-place predicate.

Actually it is a 3 place predicate, but I've been ignoring that fact since 
I understood that you were (I understood your zo'e in x3 as zi'o (QED %^)

(No I do not advocate that this should be the case; we are simply wrong to 
not be talking about zi'o catra fi zi'o when we want to compare with morsi 
binxo. I contend that a bottle without a lid simply is not a botpi NOR a 
structural modification thereof (though I vaguely get Cowan's explanation 
of zi'o as a mathematical projection). A better example: a prosthetic foot 
that isn't attached to/inalienably part of anyone is not a jamfu; it is not 
"footing anyone". It is something else - foot-shaped-object, 
metaphorically less of a foot because it has the wrong number of places, 
than a teddy bear is a bear, since the latter can be understood as "a bear 
of species 'teddy'" having all the places filled.)

> Catra be fa zi'o is a different predicate.

1. That depends on the precise definition of zi'o being used.
2. At best zi'o makes a one-place version of catra, a different predicate 
which still must be some flavor of catra. There is nothing inherent to the 
LANGUAGE that says that catra is related in terms of morsi binxo - they 
also are different predicates. We would tend to assume pragmatically that 
zi'o catra has something to do with catra because they are the same word 
(but a different construct). (zilcatra is a different word, of course, and 
what it means is presumably either defined by jvojva or is adhoc). zi'o 
catra has no OBVIOUS relationship to morsi binxo, because they are 
different predicates AND unrelated words. It takes knowledge of the word 
definitions and pragmatic knowledge of the way the real world works in 
order to claim that they "mean the same" (which really should be that they 
entail each other).
3. Since zi'o can include zo'e according to Cowan, zi'o catra MUST entail 
zo'e catra, and it "must have something to do with catra and not merely 
morsi binxo". Unlike a relationship between catra and morsi binxo, which 
is determined by the relationships between the two concepts, the 
relationship between zi'o catra and zo'e catra is structurally part of the 
language (again according to Cowan).
4. Orthogonal to all of the above (and making everyone's position wrong 
%^), Nora said something (mentioned below, but my response fits 
here). "fi'o catra fe'u zo'e" attaches a "slayer" place to a given 
predicate. Lojban dogma is that attaching a BAI place does not make it a 
different predicate - that it is in fact a normal part of a Lojban 
predication to be able to add extra tcita sumti at will and that any Lojban 
predication has an arbitrary number of additional places that can be so 
added, with the number of potentially added places being infinite through 
the use of FIhO. Key points: we say that adding places with FIhO does NOT 
make it a "new predicate", but just merely additionally specifies 
information to refine the "same predicate". But "(zi'o catra) fi'o catra 
[fe'u] zo'e" is absolutely identical to "zo'e catra", thus by Lojban dogma 
"zi'o catra" must be the same predicate as "catra", but the latter is more 
completely specified.

Slightly off topic, because Nora is brainstorming as I plow through 
everyone's messages, based on my muttered comments:

Nora asks, what do we do with "zi'o blanu". She suspects that Xod would 
like to contemplate that as a Whorfian mind-blower; the projection analysis 
of zi'o would seem to indicate a meaning of some sort.

Nora also claims that ellipsis (and thus possibly zo'e) can include 
"noda". Her reasoning: Take any true predication. This predication has 
an infinite number of ellipsized BAI/fi'o places. It is possible to want 
to add a place with sumti value noda: "fi'o broda [fe'u] noda" (her 
specific example "A man is a man with no exceptions -> "lo nanmu cu nanmu 
fi'o -exceptions [fe'u] noda") Now is this "fi'o -exceptions zo'e" or 
"fi'o -exceptions zi'o" or something else? [At this point reading what I 
was writing, she stopped me and said she wasn't sure about how this works 
with quantification and negation, but has to go to sleep, so I will leave 
it to you do decide whether the thought experiment leads anywhere. In my 
case it led to point 4 above.]

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