Subject: Re: Mark on wiki on lerfu

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sun, 09 Sep 2001 02:44:36 -0000

--- In lojban@y..., pycyn@a... wrote:
> In a message dated 9/8/2001 5:45:03 PM Central Daylight Time, 
> jjllambias@h... writes:
> 
> 
> > Actually, there's lots more: last, lasp, lask, lact, latc, laks,
> > lank, lart, and so on are all single-syllable too.

All unnecessary, with lerfu.

Moreover, while I suppose you CAN do this sort of thing, it's sort 
of cheating, in the opposite direction of what I was talking about, 
using {mark.bu} instead of {la mark.} "lank" (or rather "la nk.") 
is "something named nk." Well, then, it should be something with 
that name! To be sure, the speaker, as te cmene, has the right to 
name anything whatever he likes, but this abuse of that power. And 
since "goi" is symmetric, with only relative unassignedness to show 
which side gets overwritten by the other, using a *named thing* on 
one side might upset that balance. ("wait, he's saying that the 
woman is really this NK person? Maybe NK isn't a woman but he wants 
to call it that?) Anyway, that's what variables are for, not names.

> 
> Gringe. Can someone remind me of the point of this, please. Why 
would we 
> want all these horrors, assigned or not? The maximum effective 
anaphora is 
> going to contain maybe half-a-dozen connections tops; beyond that 
we cannot 
> either remember or calculate the reference, whence the slogan 
"Repetition is 
> also anaphora." It is nice to ahve all these tools available for 
choices, 
> but we do not need them to do the work (we don't even need the 
fo'V set, 
> rpobably, as witness there heavy use so far.)

Well, I think I'd argue that given the heavier mnemonicity of 
lerfu-based anaphora, we can probably go over that half-dozen limit 
pretty safely. If you have a bunch of people/things with unique 
one- or two-letter initials that you bind, it's not too hard to keep 
track of them. Another example of how lerfu-variables rule and 
ko'a, um, doesn't. (fo'[aei] are the only ones that DO have an 
excuse to still be used: they have rafsi)

~mark