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

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 15:51:47 EDT

In a message dated 10/1/2001 12:57:14 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> Some examples of what I had in mind, as instances of established principles
> you seemed to be threatening to demolish:
> 
> * Semantics of nonsubordinate bridi should be unchanged if the same
> bridi were subordinate.

Not a problem. All the cases so far are subordinate and I make no claims 
that they make sense of any kind unsubordinated. But you know that.

> 
> * Le-sumti always have maximally wide scope over everything else

This is not a generally accepted principle and is demonstably false in many 
cases:
da broda le brode, mi senva le melba, etc.

> 
> <* Sumti phrase X within sumti phrase Y is at the same bridi level as 
> sumti Y, 
> and can be paraphrased, without changing meaning, in such a way that X is 
> not within Y.>

Both halves of this are suspect {la djan djuno le du'u la bil klama} it does 
not appear that {la bil} is on the same bridi level as {le du'u la bil klama} 
within which it lies nor do I see how to paraphrase it out except by external 
identification, leaving the identified form still subordinated.

So, I don't see myself as threatening any of these principles, they are dead 
already.

<Clearly the lambda notion does not ahve the same 
#authoritative force as citations from the Refgram.  

I agree with the last sentence. 

Those of us involved in the inception of {ce'u} (which includes you & me) 
know 
perfectly well what it was intended to do. We don't really need to scrutinize 
the 
Book or the Mahoste glosses. This is not to say that {ce'u} is well-definedor
that you are wrong to pursue your indagations into the further properties of
{ce'u}.>

Well, my memory is probably not so good as yours, but I took the lambda talk 
seriously and have used it as a guideline from time to time, though not too 
thoroughly until recently. I'm going to drop it for a while until I can 
restore it in full use by justifying its general application.

<It's quite possible -- for all that I know (i.e. in this case, nothing) -- 
that 
{le mamta be [lambda-variable]} makes perfect logical sense in main
clauses. But that does not mean that {le mamta be ce'u} is viable, and
I have previously stated some of the linguistic problems with it.>

So problems you have with it linguistically, I suppose. Linguistically per 
se there don't seem to be any.

<It's quite possible -- for all that I know (i.e. in this case, nothing) -- 
that 
{le mamta be [lambda-variable]} makes perfect logical sense in main
clauses. But that does not mean that {le mamta be ce'u} is viable, and
I have previously stated some of the linguistic problems with it.>

I think we are both getting a bit annoyed by what seems to each of us a 
tendency on the other's part to go off in obscurantist and shifting 
bloviation rather than simply answering fundamental questions. I think that, 
in so far as i have done what you take to be that, it is merely a matter of 
not being able to write very clear sentences even when things are very clear 
in my head. I suspect you ahve the same problem. So, rather than 
continuing this discussion (which has gone round Brown's barn at least three 
times now wihtout any visible progress) we retire to get a good 
short-sentence exposition of just what indirect questions and {ce'u} do on 
our repsective theories, with step by step explanations of the meanings of 
each phase of the game. If you are like me, you think that you have done 
this time and again, but Ican assure that you have not, at least not in a way 
that came to me as coherent or consistent or even to the point (and I imagine 
you have the same assurance for me). May be it would help to have a third 
party (xorxes? cowan -- who has avoided this discussion like the plague?) 
suggest a set of questions to be answered and a format for answering that 
would draw us into simple speech (and perhaps a bit more honesty too).