[lojban] Re: Loglish: A Modest Proposal

[John E Clifford <lojban-out@lojban.org>]

--- Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 8/15/05, Ben Goertzel <ben@goertzel.org>
> wrote:
> > 
> > As an example of the algorithms I described
> in my prior mail, suppose
> > someone says
> > 
> > "Ben murder chicken pliers quu weapon"
> > 
> > This means that "Ben murders chickens using
> pliers as a weapon"
> > 
> 
> Wouldn't you need:
> 
>   la Ben cu murder lo chicken lo pliers quu
> weapon
> 
> ? Otherwise, it might be taken to mean "Ben is
> a murderous chicken
> using pliers as a weapon" or "Ben is a
> murderously chickeny 
> pliers-as-a-weapon" or "Lo! there's Ben type-of
> murderously chickeny 
> pliers-as-aweapon!" or something else. (I'm not
> sure if names
> can be recognized as sumti in Loglish even
> without {la}, or whether
> "pliers quu weapon" can be taken as a sumti
> even without a gadri.  
> You might also need to distinguish "chicken quu
> animal" from
> "chicken quu coward".)

Thanks.  I was trying to figure out what this had
to do with Lojban and had almost gotten to
wondering how you tell predicates from arguments
in all this.  I assume that -- as is usual with
AI prospectuses -- as these problems are pointed
out, devices will be found (or at least claimed)
to deal with them.  Fow now (as usual, agqin) we
are left with a good display and unremarked
amounts of pre-editing, post-editing and just
plain cheating in the middle.  Of the latter, I
note that neither "murder" nor "kill," its
supposed surrogate, is three-placed in English
("He killed her a knife" is not English -- or,
rather, means that he bagged a wild knife for
her) and neither is connected with conflict or
violence to make a connection with "weapon," so
the analysis does not go off as it appears to in
the text.  That does not mean it does not go off,
of course, but it must be more complex (and
possibly more ad hoc) than suggested.  Lacking a
quick connection between "murder" and "plier quu
weapon" one wonders how to keep this from being
"Ben murdered the chicken who had a plier." 
Presumably Loglish must have some way of marking
off modification of arguments from modification
of the main predicate.  Given the paucity of
reference to Lojban, it is not clear what it
might be (it probably can't be the Lojban device
with {be}, given the conflict with English "be."
And speaking of missing Lojban, why "plier quu
weapon" (which isn't even very accurate for most
cases of "murdering" chickens), rather than the
Lojban instrumental case marker {se pi'o}?  From
the point of view of Lojban, this suggestion is
mainly irrelevant.
It is not obviously more relevant from the point
of view of predicate logic.   The nearest things
from that field would be (for basic stuff) "Ben
murder_x_with y & x chicken & y pliers" (or its
particular closure) or (advanced) "Ben murder_ a
chicken _with a plier."  
I think the practical issues motivating this
suggestion have real merit; I just don't think it
concerns Lojban (nor -- yet -- predicate logic).


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