Subject: RE: [lojban] The Pleasures of goi (was: zipf computations & experimental cmavo

From: "Craig" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:43:03 -0400

> >>> Rob Speer <[email-masked]> 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
assignable.
>> #> >Pro-sumti are assignable. What gets assigned if you say {la djan. goi
>> #> >ko'a}?)
>> #>
>> [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.
>> #>
>> #> 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
clarified
>> #anywhere else.
>>
>> I reject symmetric goi because:
>>
>> (1) Even if ko'a has already been assigned a meaning, you may want to
reassign
>> a different meaning to ko'a

>ko'a goi la djan. .i li'o .i la fred. goi ko'a

>You wish to interpret this as "John = Fred", instead of a reassignment?
>bi'u In usage we've been interpreting it as reassignment.

Where? "Syntactically, ``goi la .alis.'' is a relative phrase (relative
phrases are explained in Chapter 8). Semantically, it says that ``ko'a'' and
``la .alis.'' refer to the same thing, and furthermore that this is true
because ``ko'a'' is being defined as meaning ``la .alis.''." That comes out
of the refgram, chapter 7, section 5. If we define ko'a to mean Fred, and we
define ko'a to mean John also, then we could be saying that the two
definitions are interchangable (so John = Fred), or, less usefully (and
therefore not the interpretation I would advocate) that ko'a can mean either
John or Fred, and you have to glork which one it means.

>no'u probably works like you think goi already does:

>ko'a goi la djan. .i li'o .i la fred. no'u ko'a
>ko'a is John. Fred is John.

Yes, that is how goi works.

>> #(Incidentally, I don't need 2 copies of each e-mail - just reply to the
list.)
>>
>> Everyone is entitled to a vice. This is John's.

>I'm afraid John's vice is that he likes to keep the mailing list
>configured so that such duplicate mails are the default, requiring extra
>steps to overcome.

Consider the alternative. Suppose John made ''reply'' go to the list; it can
do a lot more damage to send persoanl comments to a couple hundred people
than for one person to get two copies of a mail - in which case the can
delete one. However, I do agree that people should only reply to the list,
as I am doing now.

--la kreig.daniyl.

'segu le bavli temci gi mi'o renvi lo purci
.i ga le fonxa janbe gi du mi'
-la djimis.BYFet

xy.sy. gubmau ckiku nacycme: 0x5C3A1E74