Subject: Re: [lojban] Logical translation request

From: "Bob LeChevalier (lojbab)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2001 02:29:18 -0500

At 12:14 AM 12/18/01 -0500, Rob Speer wrote:
>On Mon, Dec 17, 2001 at 10:45:47PM -0500, Bob LeChevalier (lojbab) wrote:
> > It can, but as naujeki (or naujoiki)
>
>Is there any particular reason for this? Similarly, for the CAhA selma'o
>and the fact that CAhA + NAI is ungrammatical?

Probably it is ungrammatical either because a) we never thought of adding a 
rule for CAhA+NAI because we couldn't think of what such a thing might 
mean, or b) we couldn't make it work in YACC.

>I've probably expressed this before, but I think that the separation of
>tense selma'o is going to be the first thing to go when the baseline
>ends - which would for the most part bring the language more in line
>with usage anyway, and with the goal to remove restrictions on thought.

If it goes, then we return to the TLI Loglan state where any agglomeration 
of tense words is a tense, whether or not it could possibly mean 
anything. We tried to err on the side of over-specification - at one point 
PA was several selma'o so that we could rule out invalid "number" strings 
and thereby make other number strings more meaningful. We could not devise 
an unambiguous grammar for numbers in multiple selma'o so we abandoned the 
effort. In contrast, we have a grammar for tenses that works and is only 
clumsy when you push it in new directions. It is more flexible and 
powerful than any natlang tense system, and it was the best we could do.

The different selma'o within the tense system DO reflect distinctions in 
meaning. Sometimes unrelated words ended up in one selma'o (as cu'e and 
nau) because we could not think of a difference in how they would be 
used. But a CAhA is not a CA or a TAhE, and whatever a CAhA+NAI might mean 
is not determined by parallels with those other selma'o. Hence it is a 
separate selma'o

lojbab
--
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org