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

["John E. Clifford" <kali9putra@yahoo.com>]

I suppose my point is just that, when we make all these claims about being logical ( even in the narrow sense), one expects that the way that sentences are constructed has some rational connection to the logic below, not just helper smelter rules which happen to work, in some practical sense.  So, what I sketched briefly was one case of trying to make such a rule, where the sentences clearly meant the same thing from beginning to end, not just ending up right.  As I  say later, such rules may not be possible, but they do deserve a look.

As for what is ignored, the list in this case is fairly short: binding, instantiation, and role.  The one particular quantifier is governed by two universals ( more or less), which means it's instantiation has to take both into account, while in the final analysis, the two particular quantifiers are each governed by a single quantifier and needs only to take that into account.  Neither of the two ultimate instantiations would be the one the single case would give,  and, while you may say that the quantifier expressions are not terms, they are certainly treated as such (the claim that that they can't shift positions doesn't enter here, nor, I would think, in analysis generally);they are, after all, joined just like names, not the overarching structural elements the are ( ultimately). 

Yes, every particular quantifier ( and universal, for that matter) is the same in function, but surely not in content, a {su'o plise} in one sentence points to different apples from that in another sentence. And similarly for a universal, if we are restricting our domain to just the immediately relevant groups, as seems to be the (unacknowledged) case here.

Sent from my iPad

On Dec 8, 2011, at 3:01 PM, Jorge Llambías <jjllambias@gmail.com> wrote:

> 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.

Sorry, this reads out fine, both with and without the {je}.  Probably I have an old parser.

> 
>>  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.
> 
Well, of course, I am not thrilled with the multitude of versions of the logical connectives, but, since we have sliced and diced the sentence so many ways, surely distinguishing between a quantifier phrase and a name can claim as much right to have it's own connective as bridi tails and some other odd items.  Except, I suppose, that this lumping together never gives a wrong analysis in the end, whereas confusing a tanru internal connective with a predicate one does.

>> 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?
> 
I find this question to ambiguous to deal with easily, but see my comments earlier about instantiations. 

>> (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.
> 
The objection is, of course, to burying a negation ( another structural element) in a term, a non-structural element.

>> 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".

Well, sometimes two ( each under a single quantifier)  and sometimes one (under two quantifiers).  In either each case the have different result, even if the same function.
> 
>>  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.)
> 
Except that quantifiers, unlike negations, introduce references to things.
"'
>> 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.
> 
But it is just the kind of rule that needs to be discussed.  Does Lojban allow donkey sentences or not.  As you seem to have set up the rules at the moment, it apparently does not, so no more need Bessie.  But I expect someone to produce one any day now and be unhappy if it comes out meaning "if a boy comes, all the girls will dance with somebody or other"
'
>> 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.
> 
True enough; it is just a passing remark that might conceivably relevant to your project, since it bears on what you claim to be doing in the light of the usual Lojban ads.
> mu'o mi'e xorxes
> 
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