Re: selbri vs. bridi (was: Re: [lojban] Re: noxemol ce'u)

[pycyn@aol.com]

In a message dated 9/22/2001 3:20:07 PM Central Daylight Time, araizen@newmail.net writes:

Does "ce'u" bind to the selbri closest to it or does it have to be an
entire bridi? Similarly is "mi viska le prami be le nei" "I see the
one who loves himself" or "I see the one who loves me"? At least with
"nei", I think it acts with the bridi, and thus the second is correct.
To get the second you could create a new bridi: "mi viska ko'a poi
ke'a prami le nei". Likewise, I think, with "ce'u". A function which
returns sumti instead of bridi may be useful, but I don't think I've
yet seen an example where it's necessary, or even more elegant, so I
don't see a reason to tie up the weird looking "le mamta be ce'u",
etc., for that purpose.

At any rate, perhaps we could use something like "da poi makau mamta
ce'u" for that purpose (functions to sumti) if it turns out to be
necessary, and then we wouldn't have to mess with the scope of "ce'u".

Ah, Lojban terminology!  {ce'u} is a bound variable and is bound by the shortest possible scope, in this case (since it is a lambda binder, not a quantifier), the bridi fragment after the {le}.
When people were getting het up a while ago about the horriosities of {nei}, I suggested the same rule for that set, but someone convinced everybody that {nei} was closer to a quantifier than not and so should go with the fuller bridi.  I forget how the problems with {nei} referring to itself were dealt with.
The {le mamta be ce'u} move is more cute than useful, though it is shorter tha other ways of achieving the same effect, {le du'u makau mamta ce'u}, for example.  And it is grammatical (why weird looking?), so needs an interpretation, of which it gets a useful one in this context. (It was also sure to get xorxes' -- and, when he looks at it, &'s -- goat, which makes it irresistible).  
I don't quite get what  "da poi makau mamta ce'u"  means "there is an x such that who is mother of ..."  I guess I need a context, but a condition on {da} that has no place for {da} ("by father" without the {ke'a}? -- oops! Loglan, not Lojban; there is NO place for {da}) does not clarify matters at all, even if it is grammatical.  {da poi mamta ce'u}?  It's not a function of course, but it gets to the right sort of things.  Of course, it also transforms in normal Lojban fashion into (right!) {le mamta be ce'u}.