Subject: Re: [lojban] noxemol ce'u

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 13:01:02 EDT

In a message dated 9/14/2001 8:10:01 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> 1. What is the difference, if any, between
> 
> {la djumbos frica la tamtum le ka ce'u barda}
> 
> and
> 
> {la djumbos frica la tamtum le ka xu kau ce'u barda}
> 
> ?
> 

I don't think that ultimately there is any, though the steps to that common 
core are different. I take this, by the way, as a positive point for 
set-of-answers analysis.

<2. What is the rationale (apart from prior usage) for using ce'u rather
than ma kau? Your sentence (under your interpretation of it) could
be englished as "D and T differ in terms of which of them is big", which
in turns suggests a lojbanization of:

    {la djumbos frica la tamtum le ka ma kau barda}>

I don't think so, but I'll work on it. I think that (and I know this will 
get me into trouble with stuff I've said earlier) the English you give can be 
put as the Lojban you give for it, that it has to have {ce'u} rather than 
{makau} because it has to guarantee that both Jumbo and Tom Thumb get in and 
it is at least plausible that Tom Thumb might not make the cut as an 
acceptable answer to "Who is big?" Of course, they would still differ -- one 
is an answer and the other is not -- but the different kinds of negations 
mean that further steps I like might be cut off ("they differ in their size", 
for example, or "Jumbo is large xor Tan Thumb is").

<3. I can follow your story about the essentially unbound nature of {la
djumbos frica la tamtum le ka ce'u barda} but it seems to me that on
your story,

    {la djan la bil frica lo ka ce'u prami ma kau}

means "there is some value of ma kau such that lo ka ce'u prami that
value is true for la djan xor la bil".

... In which case, it might just as well be said as:

    {da zo'u la djan la bil frica lo ka ce'u prami da}>
 
Yes, I think I did that somewhere along the line, but, if not, it certainly 
works just fine (as it should). "There is something such that John and Bill 
differ in their love for it."

<This then eradicates the construction where qkau and ce'u necessarily
cooccur, and leaves the way open to my strategy of replacing core
qkau (in core interrogative contexts) with "da -extension-of tu'odu'u
ce'u".>

Good, glad to help you out.

<.  The LE
> is in {la dubia frica la tclsys le mamta be ce'u}, which is claimed to work
> like the {frica} example above, only giving different mothers rather than
> different truth values ultimately.

Who made that claim? I don't recall having seen it before.>

I did, in some communications with xorxes and then in one summary or another 
(I can't find it now -- comes the Elephant? -- oh here it is: Set of Answers 
on 9/5 -- but I also see that araizen used it earlier, not quite to the same 
point, but relatedly). The point here is that if W and Chelsea differ in who 
their mothers are, they also differ in their mothers: {... le mamta be ce'u}

<.  This
> example also points to a possible (but largely unexplored) question of
> whether {ce'u} in subordinate phrases in a structure may be taken as partof
> the overall structure or have to be evaluated separately before the overall
> structure is revealed.  The intended reading here is clearly that they may 
be
> taken into the overall structure; it is unclear whether the other order of
> evaluations would give a different result.

It would.

  {lo du'u ce'u tavla lo du'u ce'u mabla}

(i) the function whereby X talks about Y being mabla
(ii) the property of talking about mablahood

Lojban's general rules of scope resolve this ambiguity: the ce'u is bound
in the localmost bridi. Hence the Lojban means (ii), not (i). To say (i):

  {lo du'u ce'u goi ko'a zo'u ce'u tavla lo du'u ko'a mabla}>

Thanks. Another reason then to keep {makau} and {ce'u} separate, since I 
think {makau} has a broader scope.