Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: noxemol ce'u

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 20:18:00 EDT

In a message dated 9/20/2001 6:12:20 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> Normally, {le broda} is {ko'a voi ke'a broda}.
> Is {le broda be ce'u} also {ko'a voi ke'a broda ce'u}?
> Or does ce'u block this sort otransformation?
> 

Well, I am not sure it normally is, for all And says this sort of thing; I'd 
have to work it through and I got sidelined on this (or was on this and not 
sidelined on that, I can't remember which came first any more). But assuming 
that is right, then I doubt that {le broda be ce'u} transforms, because it is 
not a ko'a and I am not perfectly sure at the moment what {voi ke'a broda 
ce'u} amounts to: voi presumably needs a bridi and {ke'a broda ce'u} is a 
property (at best).

<I don't think it fits all that well.>

The explanation of the role of {le broda be ce'u} fits in with a developing 
theory of how {ce'u} and {makau} work. To be sure, it takes minor 
adjustments, but every new item fitted in does. How does it fail to fit in 
with this theory? I know that you don't like it in Lojban generally, but 
then you don't like this theory generally, so that is all one piece. 
Alternatively, what other theor have you to suggest, either for {ce'u} and 
questions or for {le broda be ce'u} (other than prohibiting the latter across 
the board)?

<{le mamta} is clearly distinct from {le du'u makau mamta},
and can never be a substitute for it. I don't see why 
{le mamta be ce'u} should be allowed to stand for
{le du'u makau mamta ce'u}. English allows both substitutions.
Lojban, the way I understand it, does not allow either.>

Yes, the two are clearly distinct: one is a person and one is a proposition, 
for starters. And thus they cannot intersubstitute. And the same goes for 
{le mamta be ce'u} and {le du'u makau mamta ce'u} at one remeove (that is, 
they are both functions, one to persons the other to propositions). I have 
never suggested that they substitute for one another, though, now that I 
think of it, that may have been what you were accusing me of a couple of 
times and which I took rather differently. I don't see that English allows 
substitution in either direction, but then I am not sure English has exactly 
this critters at all. What does happen in English, and I say in Lojban, is 
that in certain contexts either on can occur and that ultimately they both go 
back to the same fact, though by different routes. In the context {la dubia 
frica la tclsys} {loka makau mamta ce'u} goes back eventually to either 
{gonai la babras bux mamta la dubia gi la babras bux mamta la tclsys} or the 
same with {la xlris klentn} in for {la babras bux} throughout. In that 
context, {le mamta be ce'u} goes back to {la babras bux na du la xlris 
klentn} . With some background information -- already used in getting to 
these -- these sentence can be derived from one another, but they are not the 
same, for all of that.
Given that the abstractions that can go with the brivla that people are 
interested in already include {ka} and {ni} with {ce'u} and {makau}, I don't 
see why one more is going to make a difference, especially since it fits. 
(Oh, yeah, and {du'u} since that is just {ka} slightly screwed up.)