From cowan@ccil.org Fri Mar 01 18:27:23 2002 Return-Path: X-Sender: cowan@mercury.ccil.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: unknown); 2 Mar 2002 02:27:23 -0000 Received: (qmail 89550 invoked from network); 2 Mar 2002 02:27:23 -0000 Received: from unknown (216.115.97.171) by m5.grp.snv.yahoo.com with QMQP; 2 Mar 2002 02:27:23 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mercury.ccil.org) (192.190.237.100) by mta3.grp.snv.yahoo.com with SMTP; 2 Mar 2002 02:27:23 -0000 Received: from cowan by mercury.ccil.org with local (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 16gzFG-0006Dr-00 for ; Fri, 01 Mar 2002 21:27:34 -0500 Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: [jboske] RE: Anything but tautologies In-Reply-To: <96.228eaaec.29b17b7a@aol.com> from "pycyn@aol.com" at "Mar 1, 2002 07:48:58 pm" To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2002 21:27:34 -0500 (EST) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL66 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: X-eGroups-From: John Cowan From: John Cowan X-Yahoo-Group-Post: member; u=212516 X-Yahoo-Profile: johnwcowan pycyn@aol.com scripsit: > Does it" here refer to {li abu} or {abu}? The former, likewise li abu su'i re (a+2) and so on. > That {li abu} refers to a numeric > value of a variable makes a kind of sense. But to go from that to {abu le > mlatu} (is the pause required? If so, why?) means "a of the rhings I have in > mind as cats" is way to curious for Alice (or Abu, for that matter). It was an error on my part. "abu le mlatu" is indeed two consecutive sumti, just like "ko'a le mlatu". However, if we wrap the "abu" in MEX parentheses, thus, "vei abu [ve'o] le mlatu", then it is again interpreted as a variable reference and (by placement and syntax) a quantifier. So that's how we say "n of the cats". > How can > we know that what we took to refer to Alice does not, in fact, stand for some > transcendental number? The meaning of "abu" outside MEX is distinct from its meaning inside MEX: they are bound separately and referenced separately. -- John Cowan http://www.ccil.org/~cowan cowan@ccil.org To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful. --_The Hobbit_