On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 1:05 PM, Jorge Llambías
<jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:
> Can
> you tell me how "smaji" differs from "ganra" by how they parse?
> The best
> you can do is tell me that they are both three-argument gismu.
Not even that. The number of arguments is the same for all BRIVLA as
far as the grammar is concerned: every brivla accepts an infinite (or
indefinite) number of arguments.
Yeah, I knew that when I wrote it. I was being a bit sloppy here.
> I wish it could be free when
> attached to ku, as PU is, without affecting its meaning, but it's not. Why
> they made the choice they did to not let it, is beyond me.
Because if {naku} always had scope over every other operator, there
would be no way of saying such simple things as "some x are not
broda".
Agreed, without a different operator (that we currently call "naku"). Hence my harping on the whole "it should have been called something else" point.
\
> any more than, while it is true that "ko'a ge
> du su'ore broda gi du su'oci broda" can be transformed into the true
> sentence "ko'a du su'oci broda".
{su'ore} and {su'oci} are not basic predicate logic operators,
although they are easy to define in terms of {su'o} only. (And yes,
that transformation happens to be valid.)
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that they were logic operators.
. But
sometimes you seem to challenge not my sense of aesthetics, or my
attitude towards some official rule, but some basic rules of logic.
You can't really maintain that "There is no hard and fast transforms
for arbitrary logical constructs". The whole point of logic is to have
hard and fast transforms for arbitrary logical constructs, so that we
can determine whether some line of logical reasoning is valid
independently of the semantic content of the predicates involved.
Well, of course I immediately retracted that in my next sentence with "Well, actually, there are..." And there is for "na", too. Like the first transform of transforming it (if it's in a selbri) to "naku" at the start of a prenex. Essentially, one extra step. But, again, yes, it's very messy with bridi tails. Is "su'oda na broda gi'e brode" the same as "naku su'oda broda gi'e brode"? (I think yes. Otherwise you should say "su'oda broda nagi'e brode") Heck, is "su'oda naku broda gi'e brode" the same as "su'oda ge naku broda gi brode" or "su'oda nage broda gi brode"? By the same reasoning as my last parenthetical, I think it's the former. But it certainly a potential source of confusion.
--gejyspa