Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: [jboske] RE: Anything but tautologies

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 13:15:44 EST

In a message dated 2/28/2002 9:35:30 AM Central Standard Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> Presumably {pabu} refers to the numeral "1" as much as {abu}
> refers to the letter "A". But {abu} is used as a pronoun, so
> why would {pabu} be any different?
> 

I assume that {abu} refers to "a" and that its use as a pronoun is dependent 
upon that and a convention, not that it is directly a pronoun. {pabu} 
referring to "1" seemed a natural generalization, though pi,er now tells us 
that the official way is to use a mess o' MEX, {me'o pa}. The list 
explanation for {me'o} is more opaque than usual, could be read that way, I 
guess. It could also be read as not applying on the ground that {pa} is not 
an unevaluated mathematical expression. And what does {pabu} mean, then (if 
it is legal, as it should be)?

<>And {nobu ce'o y'ybu} should refer to the sequence "0"+"'",
>not a set at all.

I would say that concatenation is a type of {joi}, not of {ce}.
Maybe {ce'o} is the ordered version of either {joi} or {ce},
depending on context?>
{jo'i} I suppose, since string are not at all like masses -- less than they 
are like sets, indeed -- but {jo'i} seems to be limited to mathematical 
critters, not symbols, and an array is more complex tha needed here (though 
that a sequence is a 1-array makes a kind of sense). And what does {ce'o} 
have to do with {ce} other than that they begin the same? So do {ce'a}, 
{cei}, {ce'i} and {ce'u} none of which connect well with sets, though {ce'e} 
does after a fashion.

<I won't even ask how to define {n'} in general in Lojban...>

Well, in arithmetic it is primitive, so can't be defined. But {ny ce'o 
y'ybu} seems about right. Specifying what it means would be harder.