[lojban] Re: Bayesian evidential?

[D <datapacrat@gmail.com>]

On Jan 22, 2:31 pm, ".arpis." <rpglover64+jbo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Evidentials do not take arguments.

True; but at least some vocatives do.


> {fi'o te kanpe xokau} (replace xokau with some number) uses an experimental
> gismu, but conveys, in otherwise standard lojban, a linear certainty, and
> is intended to be used with indefinite numbers.
>
> {de'o} appears to be the mekso operator for log; I guess you could say
> {fi'o te kanpe li de'o ni'u xa}, or define an experimental cmavo in the BAI
> class to mean something similar.

Hm... As interesting as the construction you present is, it also seems
to lose the main advantage of indicators, which can be applied to
almost any individual part of a sentence, as well as the sentence as a
whole.

As far as I can tell, {bi'a} is not currently being used by Lojban,
and isn't even anywhere in lojban.org's list of currently or formerly
proposed/experimental cmavo. Would a definition such as the following
be incompatible with baseline Lojban? That is, would this way of
arranging such a cmavo allow for more than one reading, or conflict
with some other aspect of Lojbanic principles?

bi'a [number] [do'u]

This phrase as a whole is grammatically treated as a single evidential
indicator. The number is the decibels of Bayesian probability the
speaker assigns to the word or phrase the evidential refers to; zero,
or a lack of a number, indicates 0 decibels (meaning 50% probability).
{do'u} is mandatory if the next word is another number, in order to
prevent confusion; otherwise it is optional.


ki'esai,
--
DataPacRat
lu .iacu'i ma krinu lo du'u .ei mi krici la'e di'u li'u traji lo ka
vajni fo lo preti

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