Subject: Re: [lojban] noxemol ce'u

From: Nick NICHOLAS <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 22:31:51 -0700 (PDT)

I tuned out of this discussion, and now that I have caught sight of it, I
wish I hadn't.

I'm getting this annoying feeling that, just as historically bound-ka has
been taken to be a property, and free-ka a quality, so here to bound-ni
has been taken to be a property, and free-ni a quantity.

So: {le pixra cu cenba le ni ce'u blanu} = {le pixra cu cenba le
ka ce'u blanu sela'u makau}

But conversely:

{li 25 ni glare vi la melbn.}

The discussion in the refgrammar certainly privileges the latter (your
ni1); you don't measure properties directly in a colorimeter, but
quantities. I mean, you don't get any more explicit than: "Semantically, a
sumti with ``le ni'' is a number". So the official definition of ni is
your ni1.

And since a number is *not* intersubstitutable with a proposition, so
ni1 and ni2 are irreconcilable (ni and ka should not properly be
intersubstitutable in any context), we can do two things:

1) Say sentences where ni2 arises (as bound-ni) are wrong, and that you
shouldn't say {le pixra cu cenba le ni ce'u blanu [kei]} at all, but {le
pixra cu cenba leka leni ce'u blanu cu barda};

2) (Messier, but I think far more desirable): do type-coercion: say that
you're using ni to talk about a ka, and that you're doing it kind of
elliptically, but without formally marking that ellipticality. So {le
pixra cu cenba le ni ce'u blanu [kei]} would be called a convenient
shorthand for saying {le pixra cu cenba leka leni ce'u blanu cu barda}.
The type-coercion comes in in that clearly a number makes no sense as the
x2 of cenba, as you rightly point out, so you behind-the-scenes turn it
into something that does make sense.

This really means {tu'a le ni...}, of course, and there's no precedent for
type-coercion in Lojban: if you mean tu'a, you say tu'a. But I'd rather
make an exception for {ni} than break the baseline --- which, sorrily, is
arguably broken for {ni} just as it is for {ka}. We've had the Palace Coup
for {ka}; let's not have one for {ni} as well. I assure you, noone
really wants to say {le pixra cu cenba tu'a leni ce'u blanu}, and noone
wants to give up {leni} evaluating to a number.

Boy, am I glad I didn't include ni in the Lessons!

I haven't been tuned in, so I may have misstepped here; but surely we
don't want to start saying that a mother is the difference between Dubya
and Chelsea. People aren't differences. Properties are differences. "The
difference between Dubya and Chelsea is the fact that Dubya's mother is
Babs, and Chelsea's mother is Hillary." Sounds to me like {la dubias.
frica la tcelsis. leka makau mamta ce'u}. I see why you might want things
to be differences or variations, so you can put {ni} in there with a free
conscience; but that sounds mighty muddled to me. I mean, what is the
difference extensionally, {la xilyris. fa'u la barbaras.}? Yuck.

(Who does that mean I've just allianced to, And or xorxes? :-)

Nick, trying to be all things to all people.

-- 
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Nick Nicholas, Breathing I REJECT {gumri}
[email-masked] (Lojban Wiki, Resurrected Gismu)