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

From: And Rosta <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 12:47:46 +0100

pc:
[email-masked] writes:
#> give some examples from ordinary English
#> where we refer to functions. Or is it something that comes up only in
#> technical logical and mathematical discussion? For example, are
#> 'age', 'height', 'place of birth' functions? If so, then I think I can
#> see how you ended up talking about functions, for it does seem
#> that in current Lojban, {tu'odu'u ma kau mamta ce'u} would be the 
#
#I think all of the cases you cite and the rest of the lines on a typical 
#personnel form are good examples of functions of the sort I have in mind.  
#But in the process of doing that, I realized where (perhaps) the snarl is -- 
#back at indirect questions. You think that {tu'o du'u makau mamta ce'u} 
#ultimately gives a woman (or a name of a woman); I think it gives a 
#proposition. So we may be talking about the same thing and merely 
#disagreeing about what says it and how. I think that your view (if I am 
#being fair to it, as your cases suggest) is inconsistent, since it would have 
#the wrong sorts of things in places like {djuno2}, but I am not sure. I'll 
#think on it more, once I am sure I have figured this out right.

I think that {tuo'odu'u ma kau mamta da} is some sort of proposition,
and that the way to express the mother-of function applied to a
particular argument, 'da', say, is {LE mamta be da} (and not
{tu'odu'u ma kau mamta be da}.

So I do understand where your {le mamta be ce'u} is coming from, and
I do see why {tu'odu'u ma kau mamta be ce'u} seems inconsistent.
However, I would make 3 further observations:
(1) Inconsistent or not, that is the current standard lojban way of saying
it, I believe.
(2) I dispute the logical correctness of {tu'odu'u ma kau mamta be ce'u} 
in at least some environments where it typically occurs (e.g. x3 of
frica).
(3) I'm not clear about how the mother-of function 'ultimately' gives a
woman, and the key thing, it seems to me, is that the mother-of function is 
not a woman but a function (from things to their mothers) just as a property,
tho expressed by a ka/du'u phrase is not a proposition but a function from
things to propositions. We could say, then, that ka/du'u is basically a
device for expressing unapplied functions, but that when 0-adic serves
to express propositions.

#<Okay. That could be helpful. Your < > notation didn't correspond to any
#notation I am familiar with.>
#What notations do you know? I can usually translate.

It's safest to avoid relying on notation.

<<<
<However, normally a bridi preserves its meaning when subordinated (e.g.
#placed within an abstraction), so if {la djoun mamta ke'a} and {la djoun
#mamta ce'u} have a certain meaning as main clauses then that meaning
#ought to preserved when the bridi is subordinate. And that would then
#seem to stymie the meaning that ce'u and ke'a already have when
#within ka/du'u and noi bridi.>
#
#I don't find this particularly persuasive, since it is inside out. We have 
#these critters well-defined in subordinate positions and not as main 
clauses, 
#so we can't say that the main clause meaning stymies the subordinate 
meaning. 
# We might say that it is hard to imagine a main clause meaning that would 
not 
#stymie the subordinate clause meaning, and that may be true of {kea}.  

Put it that way, then. It's what I meant.

#But arguing from what we hard a hard time imagining to "it ain't so" is 
generally 
#an awfully weak argument, since it collapses so easily to someone with a bit 
#more imagination.

That is not how my argument works.>

Sorry if I've missed something, but what exactly, given your argument and 
your agreement of my version above?

Sorry; I agreed with you overhastily. My argument is simply that any proposed
main clause meaning must be one that doesn't stymie the subordinate
meaning. Your proposed main clause meaning did stymie the subordinate
meaning. And, though it is not part of my argument, I indeed can't imagine
an adequate mainclause meaning.

--And.