Subject: Re: [lojban] po'u considered harmful

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 09:57:16 EST

In a message dated 1/13/2002 8:25:24 PM Central Standard Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> 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

Sorry, but as a logical language, this usage is not unlojbanic. At most, it 
is slightly stilted, but logically correct. The talk about numeric value is 
just misguided, since identity is about numeric value only incidentally: 
identity is about the referents of expressions, which in the case of numeric 
expressions happens to be their values, but is not in the case of non-numeric 
expressions (obviously). So, {mi du la kreig} is (in ragnarok's case) 
correct in every respect, since the reference of {mi} and {la kreig} are in 
fact the same entity. To be sure, {mi me la kreig} is also correct (after 
that unfortunate sense change of {me}) but says something rather different, 
since it opens the possibility (reality, of course) that other entities might 
be called {kreig}. And {mi'e} is just the name-card label, for introductions 
and signatures: for identification not for statements of identity (cetainly 
usage, but apparently also definition).
So, not malglico at all, even though it corresponds to English; even English 
is sometimes logical (admittedly {mi du lo broda} is more suspect, but even 
it is correct.)