Subject: Re: [lojban] tautologies

From: "Jorge Llambias" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 14:07:55

la and cusku di'e

>I don't think this is attributable to malglico. Jorge's reasoning was
>approximately thus:
>
>1. "du'u ma kau broda" = "is a completion of the incomplete propostion
>'ma kau broda' = 'x broda', where x is unbound".
>2 So what might main clause "ma kau broda" mean? That any
>completion of the incomplete proposition is true?
>3. If so, that turns out to be a good way of rendering English
>conditional wh-ever constructions.

Almost. I was thinking something like this:

1. "du'u ma kau broda" = "is a completion of the incomplete propostion
'ma broda' = 'x broda', where x is unbound".
The incomplete proposition is 'ma broda'. 'kau' signals a completion. 
(Which completion depends on context. {djuno} requires a true completion, 
other predicates don't.) Similarly 'pau' signals
the request for a completion.

2 So what might main clause "ma kau broda" mean? It is also a completion of 
'ma broda'. Which completion? Typically a/the true one, in the context where 
the sentence would otherwise be used as a claim.

3. If so, that turns out to be a good way of rendering English
conditional wh-ever constructions.

>I disagreed with step 2 on logical grounds and with step 3 on more
>practical grounds.

Your step 2 is not quite right, because not any completion will
be true. The true completion is selected by virtue of it being
an ordinary main clause. (By ordianry I mean that there are no
other explicit 'metalinguisticals', which I suppose might alter
things.

>I think this is a problematic proposal, but it's going to look like 
>nonsense
>to you if you don't realize it's a novel rule of interpretation.

Thanks for helping me sort things out!

One problem I noticed after sending it is that it won't work
for mixed cases, since we have no way of indicating which slot
is being kau'ed and which is pau'ed...

mu'o mi'e xorxes

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