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Re: [lojban] Re: Reasoning by analogy

On 2021-01-01 19:56, scope845hlang343jbo@icebubble.org wrote:


What about something like this:

   la lojban. bangu mi'o  <-->

   la lojban. ce'o mi'o ckaji loka ce'u bangu ce'u
The problem there is using a binary relation {lo ka ce'u ce'u bangu} where ckaji2 should be a unary relation. If we allow this, then we can't unambiguously interpret {ko'a ce'o ko'e ckaji lo ka broda}. Is it unpacking the tuple or not? 


I was thinking about the possibility of using a {fi'o} modal tag, so I
checked the grammar for places where {fi'o} can be used.  As it turns
out, there aren't very many, and there are even fewer where {fi'o} could
be used for this purpose.  I found only two possibilities:


You can put fi'o tags in more places than that. Try these in a parser.
.i do jamfu cadzu cilre kakne .iseni'ibo fi'o simsa la'e di'u do xance cadzu cilre kakne 

.i do jamfu co'e .i fi'o simsa bo do xance co'e

.i ko'a jai fi'o broda fe'u brode
More generally, {fi'o broda} is pretty much equivalent to a BAI cmavo, so you can use it to form a connective with {bo}, you can use it with {jai}, you can use it before a selbri, you can connect it with other tags, and you can use it as a term if you follow it with a sumti or the terminator {ku}. 


   Using a {fi'o} tag in front of {tu'e}:

     do ka'e cilre fi lonu do cadzu fi lo jamfu
     .iseni'ibo fi'o simsa la'edi'u tu'e
     do ka'e cilre fu lo xego'i fi lonu do cadzu fi lo xance

   Using a {fi'o} tag in front of the selbri:

     do ka'e cilre fi lonu do cadzu fi lo jamfu
     .iseni'ibo do fi'o simsa la'edi'u je ka'e
     cilre fu lo xego'i fi lonu do cadzu fi lo xance

These would seem to be fairly general solutions, too: connecting the two
claims using either {.iseni'ibo fi'o simsa la'edi'u tu'e} or {.iseni'ibo
<leading sumti> fi'o simsa la'edi'u fe'u} should work for whatever bridi
are being held in analogy, right?
This seems okay to me, but I don't think it's as precise as it would be to directly go for using {simsa}.
The usual strategy to interpret a {fi'o} clause is to rearrange to make its selbri the top-level selbri. For example, I would interpret {mi fi'o simsa do se bangu lo lojbo} as 

  mi do simsa lo ka lo lojbo cu bangu
  + a claim that {mi se bangu lo lojbo}
The same idea applies to BAI, so {.i broda .i seni'i bo brode} is interpreted as 

  lo du'u broda cu nibli lo du'u brode
  + the fact that both {broda} and {brode} are claimed
When there are multiple BAI, tenses, fi'o-clauses, quantifiers, etc. (generally called bridi operators) at the same level in a sentence, they're interpreted from left to right.
Anyway, using the usual interpretation strategy, we don't get the right meaning from your examples. They mean "it is possible that you learn to walk on your feet ==> similar to that, it is possible that you learn by the method of learning to walk on your hands to walk on your feet."
What strikes me about that is that it's saying that the similarity between the possibility of learning to walk on your hands and on your feet is implied by the possibility of learning to walk on your feet. But I don't think there's a logical implication there at all, is there?
An analogy is not an implication. It's an observed similarly that is used to make inferences. So the order of the bridi operators seems a bit backwards in the fi'o examples.
Taking a step back and working from this idea of what an analogy is, we want to say "walking on your hands is similar to walking on your feet, which implies that _learning_ to walk on your hands is similar to _learning_ to walk on your feet." Here's my take on that in Lojban:
.i lo xance lo jamfu cu simsa lo ka kakne co cadzu fi ce'u kei .e ja'e bo lo ka makau xe cilre co cadzu fi ce'u Hands and feet are similar in that one can walk on them, and therefore similar in what way one can learn to walk on them.
This approach also generalizes: {ko'a ko'e simsa lo ka broda [kei] .e ja'e bo lo ka brode}. For example,
  lo najnimre lo plise cu simsa lo ka farvi bu'u lo tricu kei .e ja'e bo lo ka makau tadji co kurji   Oranges and apples are similar in that they grow in trees, and therefore similar in what way one cares for them. 

.i mi'e la tsani mu'o

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