[lojban] Re: minimal lojban

["Adam D. Lopresto" <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

> > > > > 2. Reduce each Lojban utterance into a collection of binary
> > > > > (2-sumti) predicates.
> > > >
> > > > Can you tell me how that works with, say, "da klama de di mi do"
> > > > ?
> >
> > Why wouldn't it just be something like
> >
> > A isa klama-instance
> > A first-sumti B
> > A second-sumti C
> > A third-sumti D
> > A fourth-sumti E
> > A fifth-sumti F
>
> Because "Reduce each Lojban utterance into a collection of
> binary(2-sumti) predicates." would preclude that.  Hence my
> question.  Why they're doing it that way, I don't know.

I can see how it would work the other way, but I don't think that rules out
what I wrote.  Translating my example into (probably slightly broken) lojban.

.i abu. du'u klama
.i by. pavyselsu'i abu.
.i cy. relselsu'i abu.
.i dy. cibyselsu'i abu.
.i ebu. vonselsu'i abu.
.i fy. mumselsu'i abu.

where {ko'a pavyselsu'i ko'e} is basically {ko'e sumti ko'a li pa}, and is the
the same as "first-sumti" relationship given above.  So "A" is the entire
klama instance, and we relate it to each of the sumti that fill in places in
it.  Notice that in the "tavla" example, even though we were filling in two
places, we never said "A tavla B", but rather that "A isa tavla-instance",
"A's first sumti is B", etc.

At least, I thought I understood, for a brief moment there...
--
Adam Lopresto
http://cec.wustl.edu/~adam/

Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: 
that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a 
tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide.
         -- (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)