Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Binary Language

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 25 Dec 2001 18:52:02 EST

In a message dated 12/24/2001 6:54:57 PM Central Standard Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> As I said, "between" would be a one argument verb. Try A between 
> (tag) B has location (tag) C has location. Since tags aren't 
> ordered anyway, this makes sense.
> 

Well, I don't see in what sense a one-place predicate can mean "between" 
Since the sentence will only be true -- even meaningfull -- if it has the two 
"tags," this seems to be merely a remarkably inefficient way to show a 
three-place predicate. I could, using this logic, make all predicates 
one-place by divvying up bits of the meaning in pieces and then requiring 
that all the "tags" be there with the "basic meaning" part. I don't see that 
as in any way informative, merely arbitrarily procrustean. The limit to 
two-place is in princple the same. More coherent would be just areas and and 
(one-place) tags: entitlement donor recipient patient, for "give" say. st 
least each piece really means something that way (the one-place "between" doe 
not have any meaning without the tags).