Re: [jboske] Lojbab on tu'o (was: RE: RE: Nick on

[John Cowan <cowan@ccil.org>]

Robert LeChevalier scripsit:

> 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).

That's the idea.

> (zilcatra is a different word, of course, and 
> what it means is presumably either defined by jvojva or is adhoc).

It means the same as catra be fa zi'o.

> 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).

True. In fact I doubt if they do entail one another, as shown by the
example:

On Monday I shot him, which caused his death on Friday.
*On Monday I shot him, and I killed him on Friday.

> 3. Since zi'o can include zo'e according to Cowan, 

No, no, the other way about. If zo'e appears, it *might* mean zi'o;
but zi'o cannot "mean" zo'e, in fact nothing can "mean" zo'e, for it
has no intrinsic meaning.

> 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.

AFAIK this is just a matter of the semantics of "new", predicated of selbri.
No issue.

> 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.

Sure. It's a complete bridi, and it's false, you can say that much
right off (because the set of sumti-sequences that makes it true is null).

> 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? 

fi'o-zi'o is pointless: you add a place only to delete it again.
The question is how to read "lo nanmu cu nanmu fi'o -exceptions ku",
and the answer is that I'd hardly read that as "fi'o -exceptions noda"
(which puts the whole sentence under a negation) unless the context
compelled me to.

-- 
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It's all semi-structured, no less. http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
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