Subject: Re: [lojban] A revised ce'u proposal involving si'o (fwd)

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 22:09:10 -0400

At 06:16 PM 9/14/01 -0700, Nick NICHOLAS wrote:
> > >The issue in soi vo'a is not soi, it's vo'a. See Wiki, "Why the Book is
> > >Right and the ma'oste is Wrong" and "Prior usage and discussions of vo'a".
> > If the community is convinced that the ma'oste is wrong based on history,
> > then the community should do no less than to come up with a better 100
> > character definition %^)
>
>Lojbab, please read the pertinent discussion on the List and the Wiki
>before you say this kind of things. It has.

Much as you may wish it to be, the wiki is not official. If you want it to 
be taken official note of, post it here. I have found myself unable to 
read even 10% of what goes down on the wiki, and will not be responsible 
for it.

> > It is? Where is this definition? And why should it be so? Why can't they
> > refer to any of the other sumti? I seriously do not understand why vo'a
> > and vo'e have some sort of privileged role in the x3 of dicra which need
> > not refer to x1 or x2 at all.
>
>It should be obvious that, when a ka-clause is related to other sumti in a
>gismu definition, (a) that ka-clause contains ce'u; (b) that gismu usually
>specifies how that ce'u value is filled, through one of the other places.
>When a gismu definition involves a property, it should be obvious that
>it's a property of one or more of the other places.

It is not obvious to me, and I don't think that it is necessarily true.

>If it's not obvious to
>you, then we clearly understand {ka} very very differently. But we already
>knew that.

Yep.

> > >You can't just be elliptical
>
> > Of course I can. This is Lojban; I can be elliptical about anything!
> > %^) The rules need to be able to tolerate ellipsis, because human beings
> > will ellipsize.
>
>That is SO utterly cheap. You know what my full sentence means; you have
>no right to truncate it to score a cheap shot.

YOUR sentence? Oh. I was NOT truncating it to score a cheap shot, but to 
make clear what I was responding to. I don't think that there are any 
limits on what human language users WILL ellipsize. They may be 
misunderstood as a result, but they will do so. I am resistant to a 
language design that seems to intentionally punish those who do not think 
the way the designers had in mind. Semantic hardlinerism does so, IMAO.

>*collects himself*
>
>You cannot complain, I mean, that ce'u doesn't work when you're being
>elliptical.

It is not merely that it "doesn't work", it is that it is impossible for it 
to work when you are being elliptical. Ellipsis is supposed to be optional 
in this language. Don't allow it, and the prescription will be broken. So 
if you manage to convince me to use ce'u in dicra, I will use subscripts.

>If you're leaving out half the sentence, of course there's
>going to be nowhere visible for ce'u to be anchored. That does not mean
>there's nowhere for ce'u to be anchored at all, hence ce'u doesn't work,
>hence not all ka-clauses involve ce'u. That's just plumb wrong.

In other cases where there is ellipsis in Lojban, there is no question what 
the other referents in the sentence refer to. ri doesn't refer to places 
that have been ellipsized. Even with vo'a, when it refers to an unfilled 
place, you know what place it refers to. But if dicra has two ce'u "by 
definition" then if you ellipsize one because you are ellipsizing part of 
the sentence, then the other has to be marked in some way to know what it 
refers to. And if you say that you can't ellipsize, then I simply predict 
that usage will swamp your prescription.

> > >and assume that means ce'u doesn't work.
> > If I am forced to not be elliptical in order for you to figure out the
> > grammar, then something is wrong.
>
>Uhuh.
>
>So what's the relation between {lamne} and {gerku} in {lange'u}?
>
>I have every right in the world to say "when you use {lange'u}, you mean
>{lantroge'u}."

If the lujvo is not so defined then you do not (if it is, then the argument 
is moot). The Book (with Ivan's permission) lists many alternative 
relationships that can be implicit in tanru. Only those lujvo that are 
fully defined in the dictionary are prescribed in meaning (hence my 
priority on getting more lujvo defined).

>You can keep on using {lange'u} to your heart's content,
>because you're indifferent to my hardliner concerns. But what I say is
>true: what you mean is {lantroge'u}.

There is one meaning to every lujvo. I haven't looked up to see if that 
one has that meaning by prior definition.

>Ellipsis is ambiguous inherently, Lojbab. That's why we fill in ellipses
>to disambiguate. That is what we say about Lojban, isn't it?

IMHO, not knowing what ce'u refers to because of ellipsis (not what it 
means, but what it refers to) is not an acceptable ambiguity.

I agree that if you are getting too steamed, we should drop this. I am not 
steamed at all (and haven't been through much of the last couple of 
months), but I understand that you are. We can agree to disagree.

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org