Re: [lojban] Teaching methods, especially WRT terminators, and validation thereof

["H. Felton" <fagricipni@gmail.com>]

On 9/10/10, Luke Bergen <lukeabergen@gmail.com> wrote:
> That's unfortunate.  I would read {la .cip. noi gerku cu batci lo mrinau} as
> "that which is named named 'sheep' (which is a dog) bit the mailman" not
> "that which is named 'sheep (which is a dog)' bit the mailman".  That is, I
> would assume that the elided [ku] would go between {la .cip.} and {noi
> gerku}.  From what you're saying it sounds like the elided [ku] would go
> between {noi gerku} and {cu batci}.  yuck

I'm surprised; I didn't think that expressions like the one I
made up from The Draft Reference Grammar would actually have any
real utility, but you found one.  ("sheepdog", I like that pun.)
I have to agree with you that expressions with meanings of the form
"that which is named 'sheep' (which is a dog) bit the mailman" are
likely to be more generally useful than ones like "that which is
named 'sheep (which is a dog)' bit the mailman"; nevertheless, my
understanding of the parsing rules is that "la .cip. noi gerku cu
batci lo mrinau" should be interpreted as meaning the second; you
need to add that single "ku" to get the first interpretation, which
is more likely what you meant to express.  If the first is
what is actually meant by the expression without the "ku", then I
need to be told what rule makes that the unambiguously-correct
parsing; I don't know if it *should* be -- it could be argued that
a rule that forces the first interpretation for the expression
without the "ku" eliminates the possibility of expressing the
second meaning at all, while requiring the insertion of 1 "ku" to
get the second interpretation does not make expressing that meaning
very much harder --; but if there is a rule that means that it is,
I will use the language as it *is*, rather than trying to "improve"
it in that respect.

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