Subject: Re: The Pleasures of goi (was: zipf computations & experimental cmavo

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2001 03:49:33 -0000

--- In lojban@y..., "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <lojbab@l...> wrote:
> At 01:12 PM 9/30/01 +0000, mark@k... wrote:
> >Indeed. I therefore propose that ''da'o'' be used to specify
> >assymetry in ''goi'' and ''cei'' assignments. Whichever element 
is
> >da'o-ed is considered to be cleared out and overwritten by the new
> >value. This may well mean redefining ''da'o'', which I think
> >currently means "undefine everything." For that meaning, I 
propose
> >''da'oda'o''. DAhO has the same grammar as UI, near enough, so it
> >can be considered to attach to things. ''da'o'' outside of 
goi/cei
> >will retain the meaning of undefining whatever it's attached to.
> >This, I think, is a pretty small change, not really munging 
baseline
> >badly, and certainly it accords with grammar. And I think it 
neatly
> >solves several problems at once. ''--mi'e mark''
> >
> >I second. DAhO is another example of a selma'o that should not
> >exist. Apparently the only difference with UI is that ''da'onai'' 
is
> >not allowed, but it has a very useful meaning: when you want to
> >emphasize that you are __not__ undefining something. So, whenever 
it
> >is pertinent, ''da'o'' should be moved to UI. --mi'e [xorxes]
> >
> >(end of quoting)
> >
> >What think you, And et al?
> 
> I agree (for once %^). da'o should have been UI. If so, then you 
could do 
> a single unbinding using da'oru'e (this would be as legal now as 
da'oda'o, 
> but given the parser algorithm specified in the grammar 
description, in 
> theory the da'o disappears before the ru'e is applied; I doubt 
that the 
> parser actually cares though). I don't support a baseline change, 
of 
> course, but there seems to be enough material in the language to 
manage 
> what needs to be said.

Well, if we're not concerned with appeasing the parser, then it 
really hardly matters that da'o isn't in UI. The only difference in 
grammar (according to the EBNF, which I know is not canonical) is 
that you can't say {da'onai}, which could conceivably be a useful 
thing to say, but not the most important part of this. I think 
{da'oru'e} is too wordy for single-cancel, which I think would be 
very common (indeed, getting into the habit of saying {rodada'o} for 
"everything" (instead of just {roda}) wouldn't be such a bad idea, 
as {da} gets bound sometimes. It's wordier than it should be, but 
better than nothing). Since {da'oda'o} is legal and unmistakable 
for anything else, I'd say just {da'o} should be enough for 
single-cancel, without being explicitly weakened. This does break 
the Book, but given how small a change it is conceptually (and da'o 
has seen hardly any use anyway), I somehow wouldn't feel too funny 
letting usage decide this one a little differently.

~mark