Re: [lojban] Re: ralju bangu be le gligu'e

["Jorge Llambías" <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On 5/4/06, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> To answer the last (and central) question first:
> {bridi} like logic assumes that the structure of
> a bridi is (ignoring some irrelevant details)
> [selbri]<sumti>, in the instant case [ralju
> bangu]<le gligu'e>.

But {ralju bangu be le gligu'e} is a selbri, not generally a bridi.

The Lojban grammar has it
> ralju [bangu <le gligu'e>], which does not
> translate conveniently into the logical form.

How does the "logical form" deal with tanru? Because this is
only about how one tanru-unit modifies another. Consider
for example the tanru {broda be ko'a broda be ko'e}, where
the tanru-unit {broda be ko'a} modifies the tanru-unit
{broda be ko'e}. Would it make more sense for it to parse
as {((broda be ko'a) brode) be ko'e}? The grammar might have
been defined that way, but it wasn't (and I suspect it would be
more complicated doing it that way). But neither is more logical
than the other. Similarly {broda brode brodi} was arbitrarily
defined as {(broda brode) brodi} but that's neither more nor
less logical than if it had been defined as {broda (brode brodi)}
In fact, I suspect the latter would have been more convenient.
But how do you get one being more "logical"?

It
> is, of course, a possible logical form, but a
> derivative one (it assumes the first form, note).

I don't see it. How is one more or less derivative than the other?

>  Yet it is the unmarked form here and the basic
> form is marked by a complex set of parentheses.

The parentheses are only needed if you want to link a sumti
to a compound selbri, they are not needed for simple selbri.
That would seem to be at least as "logical" as the other way,
and more symmetric if we consider that the modifier tanru-unit
can have its own arguments too.

> Whether this derivative form matches the meaning
> depends upon what the meaning is, and it is not
> clearly the one this form eventually matches.

Not sure what you mean by that, but the meaning of the Lojban
structure does in this case match its form as defined by the
grammar.

mu'o mi'e xorxes