From rob@twcny.rr.com Sun Jan 13 20:25:04 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: rob@twcny.rr.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_1_3); 14 Jan 2002 04:25:04 -0000 Received: (qmail 61876 invoked from network); 14 Jan 2002 04:25:04 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.167) by m5.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 14 Jan 2002 04:25:04 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mailout6-0.nyroc.rr.com) (24.92.226.125) by mta1.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 14 Jan 2002 04:25:03 -0000 Received: from mail1.twcny.rr.com (mail1-1 [24.92.226.139]) by mailout6-0.nyroc.rr.com (8.11.6/Road Runner 1.12) with ESMTP id g0E4P2u11136 for ; Sun, 13 Jan 2002 23:25:02 -0500 (EST) Received: from riff ([24.92.246.4]) by mail1.twcny.rr.com (Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID# 0-59787U250000L250000S0V35) with ESMTP id com for ; Sun, 13 Jan 2002 23:25:01 -0500 Received: from rob by riff with local (Exim 3.33 #1 (Debian)) id 16PygA-0000vl-00 for ; Sun, 13 Jan 2002 23:25:02 -0500 Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 23:25:02 -0500 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [lojban] po'u considered harmful Message-ID: <20020114042502.GA3560@twcny.rr.com> References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.24i X-Is-It-Not-Nifty: www.sluggy.com From: Rob Speer Reply-To: rob@twcny.rr.com X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=2572649 X-Yahoo-Profile: squeekybobo On Sun, Jan 13, 2002 at 09:18:36PM -0500, Craig wrote: > coi rodo > > I see two difficulties in proper use of po'u and no'u. > > The first is that it can, depending on context, be malglico. > > The phrase 'mi po'u la kreig.' expands to 'mi poi du la kreig.', which > further becomes 'mi poi ke'a du la kreig.', which in turn asserts that 'ke'a > du la kreig.', and since ke'a = mi here, it asserts that 'mi du la kreig.'. > It is, however, not expressing equality in a mathematical sense, as two > people (mi and la kreig.) might be the same person, as they are here, but > they have no numerical values and thus are not equal to one another. In > fact, such a use of du as 'mi du la kreig' would surely be taken as being > malglico by most lojban-speaking listeners, as one could easily say either > 'mi'e kreig.' or 'mi me la kreig.' The former has no relevance to a > discussion of po'u, obviously, but notice that 'poime' and 'po'u' have very > similar grammars and the same number of syllables. Why do you assume po'u means {poi du} and now {poi me}? > However, the second of these examples runs into the second problem with > po'u: ignorance of the place structure of du. Since po'u implies a stealth > du, 'mi po'u la kreig le zarci cu klama' in fact means 'mi poi ke'a du la > kreig le zarci cu klama' - and thus asserts that 'mi du la kreig le zarci', > for du is multi-placed and asserts all places to be equal. mi na zarci, so > when using po'u, ku or ku'o is more necessary than commonly interpreted; I > am probably guilty of calling myself things that I am not for this reason. This is just wrong. Only one sumti goes inside po'u. Replacing it with {poi du} or {poi me} on the fly, for this reason, doesn't work. If you don't believe me, look at how jbofi'e parses {mi po'u la kreig. le zarci cu klama}. So the reason {po'u} is useful is because it ends after one sumti, and neither {poi me} or {poi du} do. > For these reasons, I will now begin to use 'poime' instead of 'po'u' > whenever I remember, and encourage others to do the same. Knock yourself out. -- la rab.spir po'u le sarji be zo gumri