From a.rosta@ntlworld.com Fri Jan 18 18:34:37 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: a.rosta@ntlworld.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_1_3); 19 Jan 2002 02:34:37 -0000 Received: (qmail 66197 invoked from network); 19 Jan 2002 02:34:36 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.172) by m12.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 19 Jan 2002 02:34:36 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mta01-svc.ntlworld.com) (62.253.162.41) by mta2.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 19 Jan 2002 02:34:36 -0000 Received: from andrew ([62.253.88.13]) by mta01-svc.ntlworld.com (InterMail vM.4.01.03.27 201-229-121-127-20010626) with SMTP id <20020119023434.EPND9422.mta01-svc.ntlworld.com@andrew> for ; Sat, 19 Jan 2002 02:34:34 +0000 To: Subject: RE: [lojban] Q-kau 2002: halfway towards a solution/resolution Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 02:33:55 -0000 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2910.0) Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 From: "And Rosta" X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=77248971 X-Yahoo-Profile: andjamin Jorge: > la and cusku di'e > > >(A) Ignoring current usage, what would be the best way to express in > >Lojban an incomplete proposition and its unbound variables? My best > >shot would be a du'u clause containing "tu'o da" for unbound variables. > > That covers propositions that are incomplete in that they are > missing a sumti, but Q-kau covers a larger range of incomplete > propositions, with xukau, xokau, jikau, mokau, etc. That's right; but I assume that xukau, xokau, jikau, mokau, etc. could be reformulated using appropriate predicates with a makau/tu'o da argument. Obviously Qkau is a convenience, but not in any way a logical necessity. Essentially, xukau et al are abbreviatory convenience (e.g. for "makau jei"/"tu'o da jei", in the case of "xukau"). > >The relationship between Q-word with kau and Q-word without kau would > >then be a relatively idiomatic one, in that a sentence with Q-word without > >kau would be an abbreviation of a more complex sentence in which the > >Q-words are with kau. Is this sufficiently 'lojbanic'? > > Probably it would have been more lojbanic to use the unmarked > form for the simple incomplete sentence, and use a marked form > (e.g. {mapau}) for the question. But Lojban is not as lojbanic > as it should be... The question is whether we prefer to stick with current usage, which involves a complex and noncompositional mapping to known logical structures, or whether we prefer to adopt a new usage in which the mapping between lexical and logical forms is transparent and compositional. I take no particular position on this. --And.