RE: 3 loafs

["Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@lojban.org>]

At 07:50 PM 02/14/2000 -0500, Robert A. McIvor wrote:
> >       Maybe I confused things a bit by the E translation 'again-ate'. 
> However,
> >as a matter of principle, I consider a predicate to indicate an operation
> >which takes
> >arguments.  I see no reason why the arguments should be considered to be
> >linked unless the
> >arguments themselves specify a linkage.  To me, gentci just indicated two
> >eating
> >operations  linked as a time-series.  Since the bread arguments were both
> >indefinite, in my
> >opinion there is no reason to consider them linked.  However, if, as in E,
> >one wished definitely to indicate that the same loaf was not eaten twice,
> >one could say ne norsao rebfoa (a not-same bread-form).  Does Lojban
> >interpret predicates differently?

I don't think that it is necessarily that we interpret predicates 
differently.  I think that the rather more literal use of place structures 
in Lojban lujvo over TLI compounds may be the hidden issue.  There also may 
be a question as to the meaning of an indefinite quantifier, which is 
something we've argued out many times with no one reallly being satisfied 
as to the resolution.  The convention when making a lujvo like your gentci 
(our refcti) is to try to algorithmically form the place structure.  krefu 
has the structure x1 is the x3rd recurrence of abstraction x2.  By being a 
recurrence, it suggests that the x2 is the identical event.  I think we 
then see a scope issue on the loaf of bread.  If scoped outside of the 
predicate, I think it forces a single piece of bread, even if it is an 
indefinite.  So the question becomes whether the scope of a sumti in the 
abstraction place is limited to the place or global to the sentence.  We 
probably never ruled on this, but someone would have to check the place 
structure chapter of the reference grammar.

I suspect that the answer might utilize the choice between "eat-recur" vs 
"recur-eat" as to determining which scope takes precedence.

lojbab
----
lojbab                                             lojbab@lojban.org
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA                    703-385-0273
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