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Re: [lojban] Re: ka + makau (was: ce'u (was: vliju'a

At 02:30 AM 8/6/01 +0000, mark@kli.org wrote:

--- In lojban@y..., "Jorge Llambias" <jjllambias@h...> wrote:
>
> la xod cusku di'e
>
> >Going back a moment, "le jei broda" = a truth value; a real in [0,
1]. The
> >ANSWER to the question "xu broda" is the same.
>
> Not really, at least not the full answer. The full answer to
> {xu broda} is either {ja'a broda} or {na broda}, or if you like
> something in between: {ja'aru'e broda}, etc. The full answer
> is never a real in [0,1], and {le du'u xukau ...} makes reference
> to the full answer, a full bridi.

This kind of has to be true, but unfortunately may be at odds with the
RefGram (I'm too lazy to look it up). I'm referring not so much to
{jei} but another abstractor: {ni}. The refgram even contradicts
itself. Consider chapter 11:

## Semantically, a sumti with ``le ni'' is a number...

And yet, we have the example sentence

## le pixra cu cenba le ni ce'u blanu
## The picture varies in blueness.

But if a {ni} abstraction is a number, then the sentence really means
something like "The picture varies in .138"! This is the same problem
as {jei} (since {jei} is sort of like {ni} with a restricted range).
Without proposing how to resolve what some people think is an untenable refgram contradiction on these words, this issue looks suspiciously like that similar example raised elsewhere in these threads today:
Mary knows that the tallest boy went to the store, does not mean that Mary knows that John went to the store if she does not know that John is the name of the tallest boy.
There is perhaps a tu'a or something else missing in the cenba example above that leads to the apparent equivalence between leni and .138 leading to the nonsense interpretation proposed. Maybe in that example it should be 
le pixra cu cenba makau poi (ke'a) ni ce'u blanu
(assuming I'm not doing my usual massacring of kau and ce'u, this will make some sense to someone, and will NOT say that "the picture is varying in .138" %^). 

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