Subject: Re: [lojban] the set of answers

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 14:24:39 EDT

In a message dated 9/6/2001 11:16:47 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> You seem to be saying that {le mamtA be ce'u} = {le ka makau
> mamta ce'u}. That's exactly the same type of confusion as between
> {le broda} and {le du'u makau broda}.
> 
> Even if you take {le mamte be ce'u} as unevaluated, it
> 

No, I am not identifying them. The first is a property properly speaking 
(some known member of loi ka makau mamta ceu, say le ka la Babras Buc mamta 
ce'u), a function from individuals to truth values. The second is a function 
from individuals to individuals. 
The second can hardly refer to the value of the function, since a function 
has no value, only a function applied to an argument has a value, and there 
is no argument application here. Just as in the case of {le ka la Babras Buc 
mamta ce'u}, it is the function referred to not the value (true or false 
depending on what name you stick in).

The connection between the two forms also does not come to identity because 
there are surely places where one will aapply and the other not, though I 
haven't come across any yet in the indirect question business (if some value 
of {makau} satisfies the problem then that value of some related function 
will also satisfy the problem, apparently).

I think your problem is that, unlike the case of {le ka...}, there is no 
initial mark to show that what is referred to is a function. But there is a 
final mark: {ce'u}. Just as a presentation of a proposition can be turned 
into that of a property by a {ce'u} inserted in a sumti place, so the 
presentation can be turned into a function to what meets that description by 
a {ce'u} in a sumti place; that is how logical languages work. Happily, the 
grammar does not require another flag at this point (there has to be a 
minimal case of abstraction somewhere). 
[Note: this means that I am not even recommending the minimalist {ce'u} 
dropping -- though I never recommended dropping the second {ce'u}; rather I 
now find it necessary to require all {ce'u} to appear.]