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Re: [lojban] Lions and levels and the like

JCB had at least one course in Logic but in a school that did not favor modal 
logic at all.  I don't know how well he did in even that one (Lojbab does not 
improve the logic input much).  But in 56 years, the efforts to get necessity 
operators in have come to naught -- though eventually we got something like a 
necessity predicate,



----- Original Message ----
From: maikxlx <maikxlx@gmail.com>
To: lojban@googlegroups.com
Sent: Thu, November 17, 2011 10:23:00 PM
Subject: Re: [lojban] Lions and levels and the like

2011/11/17 Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>
>
> On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 9:22 PM, maikxlx <maikxlx@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2011/11/17 Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>:
> >> "ka'e" is "fi'o se cumki". The connection with "kakne" is just mnemonic.
> >
> > Is this a newish development?  {ka'e} is also a rafsi of {kakne},
> > often a strong sign of relatedness.
>
> Almost all CV(')V cmavo have the same form of a rafsi of something. My
> guess is the ones that are related to that something are in  the
> minority. "ka'e" was obviously taken from "kakne", yes, but the
> connection is kind of malglico. Similarly "pe'i" comes from "pensi",
> "ti'e" from "tirna", and thare are other mnemonics that go through
> malglico glosses.
>
Right, but with e.g. {pi'o}, it's a no-brainer that the cmavo has
nothing to do with pianos despite sharing {pipno}'s rafsi's form.
With {ka'e}, one would not think it was such an accident.  In
principle of course no cmavo need to be related to the gismu with that
cmavo's form.

>
> > Meanwhile, vlasisku, BPFK section
> > CAhA, cmavo.txt and the CLL say nothing about {cumki} wrt {ka'e}.
>
> In jbovlaste "ka'e" is defined as "fi'o se cumki". But since I wrote
> that definition I guess I can't count that as evidence. :)
>
It's only in the Lojban record!  Side note: which should I rely on
more, vlasisku or jbovlaste?  I find vlasisku's cross linking and more
complete search results to be superior.   If someone rolled in the
BPFK definitions and CLL sections, it would be almost ideal.


> > Also, while {cumki} does express possibility, {ka'e}, from the given
> > definitions, seems to be more about ability than possibility.
>
> But whose ability? Each of the arguments of the relation modified by
> "ka'e"? The x1? The agent (assuming there is one)?
>
You're asking me?!  Well since you asked, from what I see, I would
definitely assume the x1, given the glosses, proposed keywords, and
examples in the CLL and BPFK.  In particular the CLL examples indicate
very clearly that {ka'e} and related CAhA are some sort of short-scope
selbri modifiers and emphatically _not_ true modal operators with
scope over the whole bridi.

> > In
> > order to say things like "it possibly brodas" and "it necessarily
> > brodas" I have to believe that these concepts should have their own
> > words, without mixing ability into it.
>
> I agree that the word "ability" should not appear in the definition of
> CAhAs, since events don't really have abilities.
>
It's not just "ability" that seems off, it's also the ambiguous "can"
and "innate capability" as well as the conspicuous absence of "may",
"might" and above all "POSSIBLE".

> > These primitive logical
> > operators strike me as vastly worth assigning two disyllables from
> > cmavo space, especially in light of some of the other things
> > available. Just my 2 cents.
>
> I agree. I have said before that it is extremely weird that a logical
> language doesn't have a word for the "necessarily" operator.
>
The fact that there is no necessity operator strongly suggests that
the language designers did not have the foggiest notion of modal logic
when they created {ka'e}.  It's clear to me from the evidence that
{ka'e} is at best roughly related, but not identical, to the
possibility operator.  At the very least, it seems muddled and
contaminated with malglico.  I do not read a ton of Lojban, but I find
it very doubtful that common usage is substantially better than the
flawed CLL examples.  Therefore I would respectfully suggest
considering two new uncontaminated cmavo to act as true and
contaminated, wide-scope modal-logical operators:

ci'a  = "it is possible that; possibly; may/might" (looks vaguely like 'cumki')
ne'e = "it is necessary that; necessarily; must" (looks vaguely like
'necessary')

> mu'o mi'e xorxes
>
mu'o mi'e .maik.

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