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Re: [lojban] Logical translation request
At 12:14 AM 12/18/01 -0500, Rob Speer wrote:
On Mon, Dec 17, 2001 at 10:45:47PM -0500, Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) wrote:
> It can, but as naujeki (or naujoiki)
Is there any particular reason for this? Similarly, for the CAhA selma'o
and the fact that CAhA + NAI is ungrammatical?
Probably it is ungrammatical either because a) we never thought of adding a
rule for CAhA+NAI because we couldn't think of what such a thing might
mean, or b) we couldn't make it work in YACC.
I've probably expressed this before, but I think that the separation of
tense selma'o is going to be the first thing to go when the baseline
ends - which would for the most part bring the language more in line
with usage anyway, and with the goal to remove restrictions on thought.
If it goes, then we return to the TLI Loglan state where any agglomeration
of tense words is a tense, whether or not it could possibly mean
anything. We tried to err on the side of over-specification - at one point
PA was several selma'o so that we could rule out invalid "number" strings
and thereby make other number strings more meaningful. We could not devise
an unambiguous grammar for numbers in multiple selma'o so we abandoned the
effort. In contrast, we have a grammar for tenses that works and is only
clumsy when you push it in new directions. It is more flexible and
powerful than any natlang tense system, and it was the best we could do.
The different selma'o within the tense system DO reflect distinctions in
meaning. Sometimes unrelated words ended up in one selma'o (as cu'e and
nau) because we could not think of a difference in how they would be
used. But a CAhA is not a CA or a TAhE, and whatever a CAhA+NAI might mean
is not determined by parallels with those other selma'o. Hence it is a
separate selma'o
lojbab
--
lojbab lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org