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[lojban] Re: ralju bangu be le gligu'e
On 5/6/06, John E Clifford <clifford-j@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
Lojban parses, in other
words, do not give relaiable information about
the structure of the utterance; at best they
accept all and only legitimate utterances of
Lojban for some different reasons.
I agree that in Lojban sometimes (not most times, but yes in a few
cases, sometimes inexplicably) the form of a sentence, as given by
the grammar, does not match the meaning as given by the interpretive
convention. I don't think this applies to the present case however.
Now to the case in point. {ralju bangu be le
gligu'e}. It is a bridi minus one argument
It is a selbri, not generally a bridi. Any selbri can by
itself constitute a bridi, so this selbri in particular could
be used as a bridi, but in general it is just a selbri, and
especially in this case, as you say:
(I
assume this is pulled out of {lo ...} or so),
And what {lo} does is convert a _selbri_ into a sumti. It needs
its input to have empty slots. {lo} cannot take a bridi to convert
into a sumti. In Lojban, the way to convert a bridi into a sumti
is by first converting it into a selbri, with a member of NU, and
only then into a sumti with a member of LE.
so
it ought to divide [ralj bangu] (the
predicate/selbri) and [- (be) le gligu'e] (the
arguments)(the dash is for the term bound up in
{lo} or whatever).
The whole selbri is bound up in {lo}. The full structure with all
terminators included is:
lo [ralju (bangu be le gligu'e ku be'o)] ku
{lo} takes a selbri (in this case one consisting of a two component tanru)
and converts it into a sumti. Notice that {be} is part of the selbri,
in particular
it is part of the second component of the tanru, it does not atach a sumti
to another sumti, the way {pe} does for example.
It does instead break into
[ralju][bangu be le gligu'e], where now the
predicate is broken up as well as the arguments
What do you mean by "as well as the arguments"? The predicate
(i.e. the selbri) is made up of two components, yes, a seltau and
a tertau. Which arguments are broken up there?
(this is all a portion matched by the missing
first argument of the selbri).
Of the full selbri, yes.
Now, to be sure,
this grouping could make sense, but it is for a
derivative structure, not the primary one,
pred+arg.
If the pred+arg structure is primary and the pred+pred=complex-pred
is specific to Lojban and absent in FOPL, why would FOPL require
that pred+pred=complex-pred should have precedence over
pred+arg=complex-pred? Is the pred+pred structure (absent in FOPL)
even stronger than a primary one like pred+arg?
In this structure, the argument to
{bangu} really is at a different (subordinate)
level, down two in Lojban so at leat one in logic
(given the at logical same level is doen one in
Lojban).
Why is argument absorption by a predicate apriori at a lower level
down than modification of one predicate by another. How do you
figure that? They seem to me to be independent notions, and either
could be defined as having precedence over the other.
The Lojban that would give this
structure without a doubt is {ralju be lo bangu
be le glicu'e}. Now, given the indefiniteness of
sources for tanru, this might be a source for
{ralju bangu} but it would be a surprising one.
I think the most common expansion of {ralju broda} is going to
be {ralju (be lo broda be'o) je broda}, i.e. the same pattern as
with {mutce}, {barda}, {cmalu}, etc.
But that has little to do with the general question of whether
tanru composition should or should not have precedence over
argument absorption.
We would expect {bangu ralju} on the "lion
hunter" model, where the missing x1 as a kind of
ralju -- as in the long form, rather than a kind
of bangu, as in the tanru.
I sort of gave up on that ideal. I think I am now resigned
to cmalu/barda/mutce/milxe/mutce/traji/ralju etc. being
used as modifiers rather than as main components, even
though their use as main components would give a
simpler expansion.
(To be sure, the
missing x1 IS a knd of bangu, but that is
inferential from the way that [ralju} works, not
sometyhing said in the form alone.)
Since the form we have is not br but rb, we are
justified (even if ultimately wrong) to take it
that it has a different source.
Are you trying to figure out the general precedence question
from the meaning of this particular example? There's no guarantee
that the example is good Lojban.
the obvious one
is a "white hunter" tanru "x is a language of y
and x is a principal one among the languages of
y", x([rb]y) rather than x(r[by]). This
interpretation makes the expression explainable
under the same rules as are applied with the
simple xPy case, whereas the other requires a new
rule which is nowhere motivated in the expression
itself, contrary to the general principle that
deviations from the norm should be marked and
the norm unmarked (this latter being violated as
well, since, in Lojban, the simple case requires
additional marks).
I don't follow that.
So, my point that Lojban does a lousy job of
representing logic comes down to a couple of
possibilities when illustrated by this case: 1)
the analysis that the grammar gives is what was
intended, in which case the principle about
marking is violated
What is the principle about marking?
as is the simple rule for
arguments at the same depth ({le glicu'e} appears
to be at the same depth as the missing x1 but is,
in fact, at least one level lower)
Appears to whom? Only to someone that assumes that
tanru formation comes before argument absorption. If the
tanru had been {bangu be lo gligu'e be'o ralju} would the
argument absorbed by the seltau still appear at the same
depth as the missing x1? Or is it only arguments absorbed
by the tertau that appear to be at the same depth?
and the
definition of "truth" has to be suitably modified
(despite appearances this is the bear structure
of a one place predicate, rather than a two place
predicate with one place filled). 2) On the
other hand, if what is meant is the two-place
relation "is the principal language of," as
appears from the surface structure,
That's not how the surface structure appears to me, given
that I know that argument absorption takes precedence.
Similarly the surface structure of "3 + 2 * 4" does not
suggest to me that the sum is done first, because I know
that the convention is that multiplication takes precedence.
then the
grammar's analysis is a total miss -- or, I
suppose, requires yet another set of rules to get
back to what was meant in the first place. In
either way, the transparent connection between
bridi and proposition is even more complicatedx
than it was in the simple cases.
Tanru expansion cannot be done automatically, but we
already knew that.
The precedence between argument absorption with {be} and tanru
formation by juxtaposition of two selbri (absent in FOPL) is a matter
of convention, not something that can be determined from FOPL.
mu'o mi'e xorxes
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