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Re: [lojban] non-ka properties



I refuse to go with the oddities of English on this -- and I am not sure that 
English would alwys call these thing properties.

----- Original Message ----
From: Felipe Gonçalves Assis <felipeg.assis@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Sat, June 18, 2011 1:05:34 AM
Subject: [lojban] non-ka properties

coi


The following might be described in English as properties:
These are especially suspect, since they all seem to refer to physical object 
(which I think properties are not.
* one's name
having such and such a name
* one's position
being in such and such position
* one's colour
being of such and such a color -- this one is most likely of these to be called 
a property 

* one's temperature
having such and such a temperature
* one's mother
having so and so as ones mother.
All these are properties of things, not of properties --which are what 
ka predicates  refer to.

They are, of course, of a rather different kind than what is
referred to by ka-abstractions, which would be, for example,
"the property of having a name" or "the property of being
named Capulet".

These non-ka properties might not be, e.g., neither of
* se ckaji
* se simlu
* se sisku
which are ka-specific. However, I believe that, depending on
their specific nature, they might be either of

By ""ka specific", I take it you mean "have ka mentioned in the definition".  
This is not a terribly reliable guide, in either direction.

* te zmadu
* te jibni
* te simsa
* se mutce
* se traji

I then ask how these could be expressed in lojban, particularly
as arguments of the aforementioned se sumti.

Most of these seem to at least allow ka while admitting also quantities or 
events.  This seems an accidental feature here.

ka-properties have been described as lambda expressions.

Well, no, though lambda expressions can built out of them (as also out of 
ordinary predicates)

The return values of these expressions are truth values. They
might be in a multivalued scale when used in zmadu, jibni, etc,
but they are still basically truth values.

Yes, in this sense, lambda expression are characteristic functions of prperties 
-- but not the properties themselves.

These non-ka properties are then just lambda expressions
which return different kinds of values. It appears only logical
that {ce'u} should be used. The best I have come up with are
constructions such as
    {ko'a jibni ko'e lo se stuzi be ce'u}.

Assuming that ko'a and ko'e are sentences/propositions this makes a sort of 
sense, their positions on a truth value scale, say.  But it is not very natural 
a reading, even if we are talking about fuzzy values.


Nevertheless, this directly contradicts the gimste, which
specifically asks for a {ka} or {ni}. The CLL does not
mention any possible use of {ce'u} outside an abstraction
either.

What am I missing?
How are these ideas expressed in the current corpus?

mu'o
mi'e .asiz.

I suspect a use-mention confusion between properties and predicates, but can't 
quite pin it down (and it may as well be mine as asiz')

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