From arosta@uclan.ac.uk Thu Sep 27 05:57:10 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: arosta@uclan.ac.uk X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_4_1); 27 Sep 2001 12:56:17 -0000 Received: (qmail 901 invoked from network); 27 Sep 2001 12:56:17 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by 10.1.1.223 with QMQP; 27 Sep 2001 12:56:17 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO com1.uclan.ac.uk) (193.61.255.3) by mta1 with SMTP; 27 Sep 2001 12:57:09 -0000 Received: from gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk by com1.uclan.ac.uk with SMTP (Mailer); Thu, 27 Sep 2001 13:34:38 +0100 Received: from DI1-Message_Server by gwise-gw1.uclan.ac.uk with Novell_GroupWise; Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:05:44 +0100 Message-Id: X-Mailer: Novell GroupWise 5.5.2 Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:05:05 +0100 To: lojban Subject: Re: [lojban] zipf computations & experimental cmavo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline From: And Rosta >>> Rob Speer 09/26/01 10:17pm >>> #On Wed, Sep 26, 2001 at 04:57:08PM -0400, John Cowan wrote: #> Rob Speer wrote: #> >(For those who don't see the problem with symmetry: names are assignabl= e. #> >Pro-sumti are assignable. What gets assigned if you say {la djan. goi=20 #> >ko'a}?) #>=20 [1] #> If you know what ko'a means, then la djan. is defined to mean whatever #> ko'a means. [2] #> If you know what la djan. means, then ko'a is defined to mean whatever #> la djan. means. [3] #> If you don't know what either means, then they mean the same, but *what* #> they mean will arrive in future. [4] #> If you know what both mean, and they already mean the same thing, the #> goi-phrase is unnecessary. [5] #> If you know what both mean, and they mean different things, *bzzzzzt*, #> semantic error. #>=20 #> This is called "unification" in Prolog. # #Hmm. That actually makes sense. I think I'll stop touting asymmetrical goi= . #I suggest you put that on the Wiki, too, because I don't think it's clarif= ied #anywhere else. I reject symmetric goi because: (1) Even if ko'a has already been assigned a meaning, you may want to reass= ign a different meaning to ko'a (2) You may want to assign the name la djan to something regardless of whet= her anything else in the world of discourse could plausibly bear that name. Fro= m the hearer's perspective, the hearer has no way of knowing whether to treat the name as simply a label assigned to ko'a, or whether to set off round the un= iversa of discourse in search of a plausible referent for la djan and then assign = that referent to ko'a. (3) symmetric goi =3D no'u #(Incidentally, I don't need 2 copies of each e-mail - just reply to the li= st.) Everyone is entitled to a vice. This is John's. --And.