Subject: RE: [lojban] Q-kau 2002: halfway towards a solution/resolution

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2002 02:33:55 -0000

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.