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

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 13:02:56 EDT

In a message dated 10/2/2001 9:56:01 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> >>> <[email-masked]> 10/01/01 08:51pm >>>
> [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.
> 
> I thought that you are proposing that "le mamta be ce'u" means "the
> mother-of function" in nonsubordinate bridi and, by the above principle,
> in subordinate bridi. Jorge and I have both complained about the
> 

Well, no one seems to have any problem with {le du'u ce'u broda} in 
nonsubordinate bridi to mean "the property of being broda", the "is-a-broda" 
function. How is {le mamta be ce'u} different? No abstractor? Of course 
not, it is not a function to abstractions. The {ce'u} is hooked on with {be}? 
A grammatical accident for which we could no doubt find an xperimental 
solution if there were a real need, but the same relationship for all that.  
What?

<#> * 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.

I've addressed this in another message. But I think it's true to say that
it was a generally accepted principle before you expressed dissent. (As usual,
these generalizations pertain only to people who have views.)>

You have addressed it but not succeeded in making it true or even plausible 
agains obvious counterexamples. You may mean something special by this 
claim, but in its plain sense it is just false: raising {le melba} from {mi 
senva le nu le melba cu cinba mi} allows an illegitimate quantification, 
fronting {le brode} in {da broda le brode} changes the meaning. How does you 
theory deal with these? Say they are not real cases? But what would a real 
look like then? I admit that I can't find your earlier reply on this, but it 
apparently did not seem to me to meet the issues the example raise.

<#> <* 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 

la bil is not at the same bridi level as la djan because la bil is within a 
bridi
that does not contain la djan.

As is usual, the above principle contains an implicit "Other things being 
equal....",
and the example you give, where a sumti X contains a bridi which contains
sumti Y, is an case where other things are not equal.>

Since the weasel was crucial to the cases under discussion, it probably 
should have been mentioned, but let that ride. In { ko'a ko'e frica le mata 
be ce'u} {ce'u} is in a bridi contained in {le mamta be ce'u} which contains 
{ce'u}. So, {ce'u} is not at the same level as {le mamta be ce'u}. Thanks 
for your support, even against yourself. What's that? {le mamta be ce'u} 
does not contain a bridi? But it must, since it is a descriptor followed by 
a selbri and a selbri is only possible where there is a bridi, they are 
correlative terms. To be sure, the bridi is, for grammatical reasons, laid 
out differently, but no less there for all of that -- and the rewriting 
mentioned earlier would bring it completely into view, without changing 
meaning, you say.