Re: [lojban] Re: xorlo podcast

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 9/30/05, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Well, this historical stuff can become a
> hindrance to discussing what is important.  I
> have tried to get information out of the material
> on the net but the search engines do not find for
> me even things I know are there (since I have
> them also in my files), so I have little hope of
> finding things that I do not know where are.

If it's not on the net it doesn't exist. :)
I've lost things too. I remember in particular one little
ckafybarja story I posted on lojban list (I don't remember
the date, but it was during the time Goran Topic was
around because it was in response to something he
posted) which I later looked for for a while without any
success. Maybe some day it will turn up somewhere.


> The labels have changed for a variety of reasons
> 1) I find a new facet of what you are proposing
> (it may always have been there, but it comes
> clearly into focus only later -- possibly from a
> new example or something that you say about one
> of my proposed solution to the mystery) 2) one
> proposed model having failed, I try a new model
> to see if it will work better 3) some new
> information from outside comes in that casts the
> problem in a better light (the McKay book on
> plural quantification and the types of
> predication was the clearest case of that) 4)
> some of the implications of an old name seem to
> be interfering with understanding what the model
> means and some other word seems to work better.

And I have nothing against that. I don't have any problem
with you relabeling my position as often as you find it
useful. What bothers me sometimes is that every time
you do so, you claim it is me who is changing positions
rather than you changing labels.

> On this, I have stepped back (in a reversal) to
> "species" from "-hood," as it is not clear just
> whjat properties are actally involved (or even
> whether it is properties rather than some othe
> form of abstraction -- it doesn't matter except
> in how the final explication is phrased; the
> pattern of explication remains the same).  I
> think that perhaps the same thing is working for
> you: you drop the Mr.Mr. talk for fairly long
> stretches because it tend to lead the discussion
> off into that murky metaphysical muck, which is
> not strictly relevant to what you have in mind

I drop the Mr talk when discussing with you because
I know it bothers you and you don't find it helpful. I only
bring it up when Loglan is mentioned, because JCB
used it to describe his {lo}, which has a lot in common
with xorlo.

> (always assuming that you have something in mind
> other than a set of sentences which you think
> ought ot have a certain meaning).

That's very kind of you. :)

> As has turned up many times, the examples are not
> very useful without contexts and clear
> translations (which also require context
> usually).

I don't know if you've read sanxiyn's recent short translation
from a Korean piece. There he has some very nice uses of {lo}.
Maybe speakers of languages without articles and compulsory
number marking will be most comfortable with {lo}.

> {lo cinfa cu citka lo bakni} can mean any number
> of things (and hence essentially nothing) in
> isolation.

Yes, something like "Lion eat Cow", no number, no tense,
no specificity. Hard to say in English. "Lions eat cows"
would be the best shot.

> If it is clearly a report of what is
> going on or did on some occasion, it means one
> thing; if it is clearly a generalization about
> lions or cows, it means another; if it just
> laying out a possibility, it means yet something
> else again.  And so on.

Right.

> And an explication of
> what {lo cinfa} means needs to cover all of these
> -- and whatever else comes along.  It is the more
> remote cases that are the most interesting
> usually: your {mi djica lo cinfa}, to stick with
> the current vocabulary, reveals (as nothing else
> does that I can recall) the peculiar nature of
> {lo cinfa} relative to the other types of sumti
> in the language (I mean the {lo} series, not just
> the word {lo} -- so the contrast is with the {le}
> series and variables primarily) -- if all uses
> are to be encompassed in a single explication (as
> seems to be part of what "logical language" is about.

Nothing peculiar about it from where I stand.
"I want Lion" simply says that I and Lion are in relationship
"want", just like "I see Lion" says that we are in relationship
"see". And the same would apply to {mi djica le cinfo} or
{mi viska le cinfo}, except that now the audience has to work
out what the referent of {le cinfo} might be, something that
I am indicating as a specific thing or things I have in mind.
You only run into trouble when you try to force a quantification
into a claim that doesn't have one.

mu'o mi'e xorxes