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

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:41:37 EDT

In a message dated 9/25/2001 6:55:34 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> #> ka da prami le mamta be ce'u
> #> 
> #> is the property of having a mother who is beloved. Probably Jorge has
> #> said all this already, but I am certainly one of those conservatives who 
> #> thinks ce'u belongs to the localmost grammatical bridi. (Actually, I
> #> think it belongs to the localmost ka/du'u/?si'o and not any old bridi
> #> or abstraction, but that's not relevant to the point at issue.)
> #> 
> #> Anyway, I retain my faith in Jorge as the voice of reason and (tho less
> #> immoderately than I would wish) of Reason.
> #> 
> #
> #Well, much as I hate to put Logic up against Reason (I have less worry 
> about 
> #yours or xorxes' reason), it does seem to work out diffferently, and the 
> #things that you have said actually seem to support that view (not unusual: 
> #Quine once wrote a paper that clearly recommended a certain logical device 
> #but which he claimed ever after refuted that use definitively). If we 
> shift 
> #back to lambda (and I admit I haven't messed with this for thirty odd 
> years), 
> #what you want in the first case is ^x^y Lxm<y>, where both lambdas are on 
> the 
> #sentence level. I would read your sentence as ^xLx^ym<y>, where one 
> lambda 
> #is on the term level, creating the name of a function just as the first 
> does 
> #of a property. 
> 
> which would mean what? The property of loving the property of having a
> mother? I'd do that as 
> 
> ka/du'u ce'u prami lo/tu'o ka/du'u da mamta ce'u
> 

NO, it means the preoperty of loving the mother-of function. We don't havea 
good notation for item-item functions, which is one of the reasons for my 
position -- it fills a gap we may need to fill one day (soon).

<#Clearly, we need a way of saying ^xf<x> in Lojban 

which we uncontroversially have, right?>

Well, you seem to be amking it controversial, unless you have something else 
in mind that I have forgotten about or don't know of.

<#and we need an explanation for {le broda be ce'u} in Lojban.  

I'd say that as with ke'a, ce'u is a variable bound within a
determinate grammatical domain -- ke'a within a NOI, ce'u
within certain sorts of NU.>

Well, that at least makes sense, although to me it raises the question of 
what {la djoun mamta ke'a} means in isolation. It is grammatical again (LALR1 
grammars are lousy on coocrrence restrictions), so needs some interpretation, 
even one that makes it nonsense.

<You want {ce'u} to be transitive over some contexts, though not over 
#others (else the extension-claims explanation of indirect questions will get 
#into trouble -- the set of answers one as well, of course).  

I don't understand what it would mean for ce'u to be transitive or 
intransitive.>

If it is in a construction within a construction then it is in the outer 
construction, rather than being confined to the inner.  

I agree that we need properties like having a beloved mother, I would just 
insist that the {ce'u} of the property bearer has to be directly, not 
remotely, in the proeprty d description, so I would say {ka ce'u goi cy zo'u 
da prami le mamta be cy} (and expect that the {cy} would quickly come to be 
automatic here).

I would say that we also need the mother-of function and we do not have a way 
of saying that other than {le mamta be ce'u} unless I have missed something.  
Please remind me of the uncontroversial way of saying this, and then we can 
collapse to your position without any trouble.