Re: Lojban is *NOT* broken! Stop saying that! (was Re: [lojban] Re: Vote for the Future Global Language)

[Jonathan Jones <eyeonus@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 7:33 PM, Ivo Doko <ivo.doko@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6 January 2011 03:17, Jonathan Jones <eyeonus@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Waiter: Do you want cream or sugar in your coffee?
>>
>> Lojbanist: Yes.
>
> Proper response is "I do." :D Unless you drink your coffee with neither...

If you want your coffee with neither, the correct answer is "no". "I do" and "yes" are merely semantically different - the meaning is the same in both responses.
 
>
> Also, that would depend on the waiter's emphasis of the sentence:
>
> "Do you want CREAM or SUGAR in your coffee?"
>
> means:
>
> "Is this true: (You want cream in your coffee. ⊕ You want sugar in your coffee.)?"
>
> "Do you WANT cream or sugar in your coffee?"
>
> means:
>
> "Is this true: (You want cream in your coffee. ∨ You want sugar in your coffee.)?"
>
> ("⊕" is XOR, "∨" is OR.)
>
> So presuming the waiter emphasised "cream" and "sugar", not "want", "yes" or "I do" are not proper responses. 

 
It doesn't matter what the waiter emphasized.

Let us assign the following:
p = wants cream
q = wants sugar

(Taken directly from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_table#Logical_disjunction):
The truth table for p OR q (also written as p ∨ q, p || q, or p + q) is as follows:

p	q	p ∨ q
T	T	T
T	F	T
F	T	T
F	F	F

L1 (wants cream, but not sugar): Yes.
L2 (wants sugar, but not cream): Yes.
L3 (wants both cream and sugar): Yes.
L4 (wants neither): No.

To translate the waiter's sentence into Lojban:

W: xu do djica lo nu lo kruji .a lo sakta cu nenri lo ckafi

Lojban {.a}, by the way, is Logical OR. XOR is {.onai}.

--
mu'o mi'e .aionys.

.i.a'o.e'e ko cmima le bende pe lo pilno be denpa bu .i doi.luk. mi patfu do zo'o
(Come to the Dot Side! Luke, I am your father. :D )

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