Re: Lojban analogies and kennings

[mark@kli.org]

>Date: Sun, 22 Aug 1999 01:32:00 -0700
>From: Ron Hale-Evans <rwhe@apocalypse.org>
>
>From: Ron Hale-Evans <rwhe@apocalypse.org>
>
>A central part of Kennexions is forming "kennings," which are an 
>ancient Norse poetic form based on analogies. Example:
>
>   E1. psychology : mind :: biology : body
>
>   E2. Psychology is to the mind as biology is to the body.
>
>   E3. psychology = mind biology
>
>E2 above is a restatement of E1 in ordinary English. E3 shows a 
>kenning ("mind biology") which is a poetic restatement of the word 
>"psychology."

So it's sort of making those SAT analogy questions, poetically?

>As a small step, I've been trying to figure out how to write 
>analogies in Lojban. Assuming that "biology" is "ji'eske" and 
>"psychology" is "menske" (please correct my lujvo), then could the 
>above be rendered thus?
>
>   L1. menske : menli :: ji'eske : xadni

OK, this is a hybrid of Lojban with English/mathematical notation.  As
such, is cool.  I suppose one could do this strictly in Lojban mekso (which
is not my area of strength--and probably isn't anyone's area of
strength--so check me on this):

li mo'e loi menske pa'i mo'e loi menli du li mo'e loi ji'eske pa'i loi
xadni

the-number (sumti-to-operand) the-mass-of mind-science ratio-operator
(sumti-to-operand) the-mass-of mind equals the-number (sumti-to-operand)
the-mass-of life-science ratio-operator (sumti-to-operator) the-mass-of
body

Which does parse... but I don't know if it's right.  I went for {mo'e}
instead of {ni'e} because {ni'e} is related more to quantity stuff, and
that's not what we're after here.  I thought {loi} would be the right
gadri: minds and bodies and sciences are here viewed as masses.  Any
comments?

>   L2. .i ke menske tai menli ke'e tai ke ji'eske tai xadni ke'e
>
>   L3. .i menske du menli ji'eske
>
>I'm pretty sure L3 is ungrammatical; what's wrong with it? And how 
>about L2? (I know that L1 is completely ungrammatical; it's just 
>shorthand.)

You need to learn about gadri, articles.  Lojban selbri are predicates,
analogous to verbs; they aren't nouny.  In order to make them act like
*things*, arguments to predicates, you have to abstract them with an
article.  There are a bunch of 'em; I won't go into the details.  But
briefly, if {klama} means "x1 goes/comes to x2 from x3 via x4 using x5",
then {lo klama} is "one that comes, a comer [to somewhere, from somewhere,
via something, using something]" (the other places can be added in, but
must use special grammar to do so).  And {lo se klama} is "a destination
[gone to by someone from somewhere...]" and so on.  More commonly you'll
see {le} instead of {lo}; I used {loi} above:

lo:	something (or things) that really is/are ...
le:	something(s) which I, the speaker, consider to be ...
loi:	(some part of) the mass of things which are ...
lei:	a mass of things which I consider to be ...
lo'i:	the set of things which are ...
le'i:	the set of things which I consider to be ...

There are also {la}, {lai}, and {la'i} which work for things *named*
whatever.  The distinction between {lo} and {le} is subtle but important;
{lo} is veridical and non-specific.  {le} is non-veridical (I can refer to
something as "that woman over there" even if it isn't really a woman and
not be incorrect) and also can be/is more specific: it's the one(s) I'm
thinking of right at the moment (so it's a better translation for English
"the", while {lo} is closer to English "a/an", though the words are so
vague in English you can't count on that).  

I don't really follow L2 at all; I'm pretty lost there.  But you could say
something like

lei menske du lei menly ji'eske

for L3.  Or maybe something with event abstractors?  Erk, I'm getting to
complicated.

Any help?

~mark