Re: [lojban] po'u considered harmful

[pycyn@aol.com]

In a message dated 1/13/2002 8:25:24 PM Central Standard Time, ragnarok@pobox.com writes:

The first is that it can, depending on context, be malglico.

The phrase 'mi po'u la kreig.' expands to 'mi poi du la kreig.', which
further becomes 'mi poi ke'a du la kreig.', which in turn asserts that 'ke'a
du la kreig.', and since ke'a = mi here, it asserts that 'mi du la kreig.'.
It is, however, not expressing equality in a mathematical sense, as two
people (mi and la kreig.) might be the same person, as they are here, but
they have no numerical values and thus are not equal to one another. In
fact, such a use of du as 'mi du la kreig' would surely be taken as being
malglico by most lojban-speaking listeners

Sorry, but as a logical language, this usage is not unlojbanic.  At most, it is slightly stilted, but logically correct.  The talk about numeric value is just misguided, since identity is about numeric value only incidentally: identity is about the referents of expressions, which in the case of numeric expressions happens to be their values, but is not in the case of non-numeric expressions (obviously).  So, {mi du la kreig} is (in ragnarok's case) correct in every respect, since the reference of {mi} and {la kreig} are in fact the same entity.  To be sure, {mi me la kreig} is also correct (after that unfortunate sense change of {me}) but says something rather different, since it opens the possibility (reality, of course) that other entities might be called {kreig}.  And {mi'e} is just the name-card label, for introductions and signatures: for identification not for statements of identity (cetainly usage, but apparently also definition).
So, not malglico at all, even though it corresponds to English; even English is sometimes logical (admittedly {mi du lo broda} is more suspect, but even it is correct.)