[lojban] Re: stage 1 and 2 non-fu'ivla

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

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

> On 1/5/06, Robin Lee Powell
> <rlpowell@digitalkingdom.org> wrote:
> > On Thu, Jan 05, 2006 at 09:31:30AM -0300,
> Jorge Llamb?as wrote:
> > >
> > > I think cmevla should be a class of brivla.
> >
> > Yes, but you're a crazy person.
> 
> That may or may not be the case, but it doesn't
> really address
> the issue.
> 
> Lojban already treats common nouns as
> predicates, so extending
> this to proper nouns is only natural. It could
> be argued that grouping
> common nouns with verbs and adjectives rather
> than with proper
> nouns is crazier than what I propose.
> 

That "cow", say, is a noun in English (and
similar words in spanish, etc.), rather than a
verb or adjective or some other grammatically
defined category ("full" rather than "empty",
"living" rather than "dead" -- although these are
arguably less purely grammatical) is an accident
of the history of the langauge.  Other languages
-- and not just Lojban and kin -- do it
differently.  The same is true (to a somewhat
lesser extent) of the forms used to identify
individuals, which may turn up in almost any
class in some language (insofar as classes can be
correlated across languages).  Lojban tries to
have the form classes match the logical
categories (of a particular logic, but one
developed in common-noun languages)and in that
system common nouns are more like adjectival
predicates and verbs (indicate membership in
extensible classes) than like proper nouns
(identify individuals).  Of course, Lojban cmevla
can indicate several individuals and thus
possibly an extensible class, but it seems always
to be a class defined (somewhat ciruclarly) by
reference to the cmevla, "those called c."   
All of which is an objection to xorxes' way of
putting the case.    The case, however, is not
without merit.  Brivla can already occur wherever
a cmevla can (well, I think vocative uses always
require {doi} or the like, so a bare brivla will
be taken usually in a non-vocative way).  On the
other hand, there are cases where it would be
handy to use cmevla in brivla places.  We can say
"a Ford car" or "a Nixon trick" or the like by a
variety of periphrases, but ({me} having been
highjacked for other -- already covered --
purposes -- and even it was a less than direct
approach) Lojban lacks the economy of English
(etc.).  And at least some of the often useful
vagueness: most Lojban expression to cover this
sort of thing have to be relatively precise about
how the name (that is, things so named) fit into
description (or the situation being described)and
that is not always (indeed, often not) easy to
specify on the fly (or after some thought, even).
 Someplace around there was a suggestion to use
{iy} and {uy} to bracket cmevla -- or indeed any
bit of language (any language) -- to function as
a predicate (and so as a cmene -- this started, I
think, in trying to deal with Indian (feather not
dot) names like "Afraid of horses" and then
extended to dealing with the first few stages of
absorbing "foreign" words into Lojban as a quick
way of dealing with temporary adoptions on the
fly).   
In short, while combining "common nouns" with
verbs and adjectives rather than proper nouns  is
not crazy, neither is combining proper nouns with
those same verbs and adjectives.


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