Subject: Re: [lojban] tautologies

From: And Rosta <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 17:27:36 +0000

Jorge:
#la and cusku di'e
#
#>1. I agree with pc that Jorge's main bridi q-kau are not a simple
#>extrapolation of subordinate bridi qkau. Logically, makau is equivalent
#>to ce'u, and other qkau are equivalent to as-yet-uncreated cousins of
#>ce'u. If Jorge can convince me that main clause makau can be replaced
#>by ce'u with the meaning preserved, then I may recognize some logical
#>basis for his usage.
#
#I agree {ce'u} is somewhat related to {makau}, but I wouldn't say
#they are equivalent. 

It depends. Currently the distinction between a property/relation
and a completion of an incomplete proposition is captured by
"du'u ce'u" vs "du'u makau". So in that sense, ce'u is not
equivalent to makau. However, the true locus of semantic 
contrast is at the abstractor, so if there were greater 
homomorphism between semantic and lexical structure, the
distinction should be marked on the "du'u" element, 
supplemented by a way of indicating which ce'u/makau
are bound by which du'u element.

#See below for some more on this.
#
#>2. That said, kosher qkau in subordinate bridi are already somewhat
#>idiomatic, in that (say) "ma" is, logically, complexly derived from
#>"ma kau", contrary to surface appearances (which give the
#>impression that "ma kau" is, logically, simplexly derived from "ma").
#
#I think there is a way to fix this, or at least to make it a little
#more palatable. We have four types of "incomplete bridi" in Lojban,
#corresponding to ma, makau, ce'u and ke'a. But none of them is really
#a pure incomplete bridi, each of them carries some additional baggage
#as to how the bridi is to be completed. Let's imagine that in ancient
#times {ma} was the way to mark a pure incomplete bridi, and to ask a
#question you had to use {mapau} (which you can still do today, of
#course). Now, since pure incomplete bridi have no use on their own,
#the unmarked form {ma} started to be used with the meaning of {mapau},
#first as slang but eventually in mainstream usage as well. That's
#why now it looks on the surface as if {makau} is a derivative of the
#question {makau}, but in fact they are both, {makau} and {ma[pau]},
#derivatives of the pure original {ma}. The same works for all the
#other "question" words, which are not really questions but just
#marks of incompleteness. Careful or very pedant speakers still say
#{xupau}, {xopau}, etc. to ask questions.
#
#{ce'u} and {ke'a} in the ancient days were {maceu'u} and {make'au},
#but these forms ended up as simple KOhA because nobody used them
#with other selma'o, nobody knew what to do with xuceu'u, xoke'au,
#and so on.

This is pleasingly ingenious, but telling a story about diachrony does
not rationalize synchrony (though, if it were true, it could *explain* sychrony).

If you recast the above story as a set of proposals for altering the
synchronic grammar, so that bare ma is an abbreviation of mapau,
and bare ce'u an abbreviation of mace'u'u, then I would accept 
the mapping between semantic and lexical form as being more simple
and direct than it currently is.

#>3. However, logically speaking Jorge's main clause qkau could occur
#>in a subordinate bridi (e.g. "[Whetherever]1 John knows _1 Jane
#>went" = "Whether John knows Jane went, or John knows Jane did
#>not go"), but this would not work grammatically.
#
#I'm not sure I understand. Why can't we distinguish:
#
# 1- la djan djuno le du'u xukau la djein klama
# John knows whether Jane went.

= "Either Jane went and John knows Jane went OR Jane didn't go
and John knows Jane didn't go"

# 2- xukau la djan djuno le du'u la djein klama
# Whetherever John knows that Jane went.

= "Either John knows that Jane went or John does not know that 
Jane went"

# 3- xukau la djan djuno le du'u xukau la djein klama
# Whetherever John knows whether Jane went.

= ""Either (1a) Jane went and John knows Jane went OR (1b) Jane 
didn't go and John knows Jane didn't go OR (2a) Jane went and 
John does not know Jane went OR (2b) Jane didn't go and John doesn't know Jane didn't go"

#What am I missing?

The meaning I was trying to get, is a qkau version of 
"la djan djuno le du'u xu la djein klama". Let's change it to
{jinvi} to make things less confusing:

"la djan jinvi le du'u xu pau la djein klama"

This asks whether John believes Jane did go, or whether John
believes Jane didn't go. It ought to be possible to form a 
main clause whetherever from this, but it isn't.

A similar example would be

"However many people John reckons that I invited, he's still
got no right to issue invitations of his own"
= "Whatever the value of n such that John reckons that I
invited n people, ..."

--And