Re: [lojban] semantic parser - tersmu-0.1rc1

[Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 4:49 PM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Yes, I rather thought those were the rules you were using (or something like),
> so what I am talking about is not a step backward so much as a step along a
> different path.

Show the path already, then.

> Loglan claims to be a logical language, FOL spoken, with all a
> sentence's  logical properties on the surface -- or as near as makes no never
> mind.

Indeed, at least for the logical core of the language. And that's what
Martin and I were concerned with.

> We spend a lot of time worrying about, for example, what quantifier binds
> what variable or within whose scope a certain item lies.

Right.

> But when it comes to
> cashing in on this claim, to reconstructing the underlying FOL sentence, all of
> that is ignored.

Huh?

> replaced by the crudest sort categorization, basically, "If it
> looks the same, it is the same."

The quantifier "su'o" is always the same, yes.

> Happily, apparently the same sort of rules
> work in constructing a Lojban sentence from from FOL and so everything works out
> all right.

Indeed.

> Except, of course, the claim that logical structure is on the
> sentence's face.

How is it not?

> To take the sentence you offer as an example, {ro nanla .enai ro nixli cu citka
> so'u plise}, presumably from something like {ro nanla cu citka su'o plise
> .ijenai ro nixli cu citka su'o plise}

Yes.

> and ultimately from {ro da poi nanlu ku'o
> su'o de poi plise zo'u da citka de ,i je nai ro di poi nixli ko'u su'o da poi
> plise zo'u di citka da}.

That's ungrammatical, but if you add a couple of tu'e-tu'u, or switch
to "ge ... ginai ...", yes.

> The first move then is folding the quantifiers in to
> their active places -- not really a problem in this case, but a source of
> several possible ones.

Tell us about those problems, then! The first move is about expanding
an ek into an ijek (it would be better to do it with geks, but you can
do it with ijeks too if you are careful). What possible problems do
you see, and what alternative rule do you propose, given that Lojban
has eks (which are not part of standard notation) and they need to be
dealt with somehow.

> Next, all these infolded quantifiers are taken as though
> they were fixed terms (which is a problem), the names of a bunch of boys
> "all-boys", a bunch of girls "not all girls"

Not at all. If they were fixed terms they could be moved freely
around, but they are not. They are bridi operators and therefore their
position in the sentence is crucial. They are indeed the same bridi
operator every time they appear, just like "na ku" is the same
operator every time it appears, and just like "ge ... gi ..." is the
same operator every time it appears. Is that what worries you? Do you
think "su'o da poi plise zo'u" could be a different operator each
time?

> (note the negation sign has here
> been reassigned as part of the quantifier)

Who has done that? Do you think it's a problem? I'm not sure if the
parenthetical was meant as criticism or merely as a description of
what you were doing. "ge ... gi nai ro da zo'u..." is of course
equivalent to "ge ... gi na ku ro da zo'u ..." which in turn is
equivalent to "ge ... gi me'i da zo'u ...", so the move of the
negation from the connective to the quantifier would be quite
legitimate, even though I had not done that in my expansions.

> and two groups of apples, both called
> "some apples", though not necessarily the same.

There are no groups of apples involved at all. There is only the bridi
operator "su'o da poi plise zo'u" appplied two times. The domain of
this quantifier is the restriction from everything in the domain of
discourse to those things that satisfy the predicate "plise".

> The two groups of apples can
> now be identified (by the rule above) and the two quantifiers, being just terms,
> can now be joined termally.

What two groups of apples?

> But the two apple "terms" are not the same

Why not?

> and the
> two quantifier "terms" are not terms (nor are the apple "terms"); they are all
> sentential operators, binding later terms.

Exactly so, they are not terms! They are two instances of one and the
same sentential operator, just like two instances of "na ku" would be
two instances of one and the same sentential operator. (They are
"terms" only in the sense that Lojban's formal grammar calls them
that, but that's just Lojban being sloppy with technical terms as
usual.)

> At this point it is not clear how
> Lojban offers any real advantages over English vis a vis the underlying logic.

I still can't identify what it is that bothers you.

> I personally wouldn't flinch at expanding {ganai su'o nanla cu klama gi ro lo
> nixli cu kandansu ra} as {ro da zo'u ganai da ge nanla gi klama gi ro lo nixli
> cu kandasu da}, as it would be in English.

That involves a donkey pronoun, and we don't as yet have spelled out
proper rules to handle them. This is not part of the kind of unpacking
rules we were discussing.

> I suspect that this abomination is essential to making a language anyone can
> speak, but I think we should moderate our boasting a bit in recognition of the
> fact that we don't in fact do what we often claim.

Be that as it may, it's not what this discussion was about.

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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