[lojban] Re: bridi mathematics

I like the augmentability of bridi math. I actually added to my grammatical parser https://mw.lojban.org/papri/zantufa most of mathematical cmavos suggested by Curtis Franks https://mw.lojban.org/papri/zantufa_nu_selma'o_stika , but I always think that it would be better if people can freely create mathematical functions without adding new cmavo to the grammar.

The cmavo {nihai} in selmaho NU is parsed by my grammatical parser http://guskant.github.io/gerna_cipra/zantufa-1.9999.html , and therefore your system should be parsed by it.

However, I think there is one disharmonious point in your examples of bridi math. In my opinion, cmavos in PA3 have property of functions rather than numerals. For example, {fihu} is a function of two variables, {nihu} is a function of one variable, etc. The functions in the official grammar should be in VUhU, but they are in PA only because of the Lojban designers' misunderstanding that PA is easier to use than VUhU for those frequent functions. Actually, the VUhU math grammar can be much simpler as shown in https://mw.lojban.org/papri/zantufa_mekso . In that grammar, cmavos in PA3 will be able to moved to VUhU without any difficulties.

Considering the meaning of PA3, why don't you abandon PA3 while you abandoned VUhU?

Considering the shortness of VUhU math, it is pragmatic that we keep some frequent cmavos in VUhU, which should be augmented by cmavos moved from PA3, and create freely more technical functions in brivla rather than in VUhU.

mihe la guskant

Le mardi 4 juillet 2017 05:08:49 UTC, Vincent Broman a écrit :

The fact that lojban mekso represents a subset of the language that is complex, little-used, and a burden to learn, makes me as a mathematician wonder whether we could could still express ourselves in mathematical terms with much simpler verbal tools, and let the complex cruft either get decommissioned, or just die of benign neglect. Lispers are confident that all computations can be expressed with lists and functions. Bridi seem general enough to do whatever needs doing. I investigated how well we might do just using PA and bridi, inspired by these two essays, but with less revolution.

http://teddyb.org/robin/tiki-index.php?page=Lojban%2C+Math%2C+mekso%2C+and+bridi+cmaci

https://github.com/RossOgilvie/essays/blob/master/source/fancu%20bridi%20mekso.md

It turns out that without changing the grammar, it's hard to do complex quantifiers (you end up saying "poi zilkancu") and nearly impossible to do complex subscripts. So, we end up needing bridi, PA, VEI, VEhO, and MOhE, assuming the current grammar. La camgusmis points out that with bridi you often get intricately nested BE/BEI/BEhO constructions that can become a mess, so a coinage like "nihai" or "poihi" within the NU part of speech greatly simplifies the appearance of nested expressions.

Attached are all the relevant mekso examples in CLL11 extracted for a comparison test, where I append to each one a restatement achieved without most of the mekso grammar, just using my subset with bridi. In terms of verbosity, the specialized mekso form in these samples saves about 30% in syllables, compared to bridi math. In my view the simplicity achieved by the longer bridi expressions would be worth the verbosity, especially since bridi math is easily extensible by coining words, while mekso syntax is fixed, and crossing the boundary between mekso and bridi is effortful.

One should note in addition, that all the bridi equations I cite could be simplified at the top level just like the following example by omitting the "du": "li mu cu du lo nihai sumji li re li ci kei" becomes "li mu cu sumji li re li ci", saving 5 syllables each time, at the cost of looking a little different from math.
mihe la bremenli
mekso-bridi.pdf
https://app.box.com/s/mvasmtp4dmlz9wzfx1jdhu4knkpj4gmb
mekso-bridi.odt
https://app.box.com/s/6nk1ysst94896cobk82i14sc9u6vg9zc
mekso-syllables.txt
https://app.box.com/s/qsydv85ska6mc43nx4k2jl1rle9un59h