Subject: Re: [lojban] ce'u once again

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 14:14:40 EDT

In a message dated 4/10/2002 11:18:34 AM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

> > 'nei' refers to the current bridi, and so 'le nei' refers to the x1 of
> > blegau in each case. Selbri are not bridi, but if you want to be
> > obstinate and insist that they are, change 'le nei' to 'cy.'>
> 

I won't insist upon it, but it remains an inelegance in the system, requiring 
repetition of some rules and preventing some natural moves.

<>The > problem with {nei} is that it is in three bridi (in some sense of 
that
term)
> and there is then the question of which is the "current" one. You say it
is
> the middle one of the three and the closest one that is not an immediate
> sumti, so I take it that your definition of "current" comes down to that
> specification. That seems a good choice, but not an obvious one. 
'le + SELBRI' may logically imply a bridi, but grammatically it requires a
selbri, not a bridi.

The BNF definition is:

sumti-6 = (LA | LE) # sumti-tail /KU#/ (among other things)
sumti-tail = [sumti-6 [relative-clauses]] sumti-tail-1 | relative-clauses
sumti-tail-1
sumti-tail-1 = [quantifier] selbri [relative clauses] | quantifier sumti
^^^^^^
If you want to say, e.g. 'the one who loves his/herself' you need to use
'sevzi' as in 'le sezyprami' or use a construction with a bridi, like 'ko'a
poi prami le nei'.>

This being one of the places where a bridi-possibility is denied in a sumti 
construction. The problem remains: the so-called bridi is merely a part of a 
selbri used in a sumti, as remote from a "real" bridi as the one buried after 
LE (perhaps more so since it doesn't even have to have a real-world 
referent). So, by the same reasoning that says the "selbri" (it isn't, of 
course, really a selbri, since there is no bridi) in a simple description is 
not a bridi, this expression can't be a bridi either, so {nei} can't refer to 
its first term. I know the grammar is written to allow it, but that just 
shows that the grammar is inconsistent with its explanation of what it is 
about. If we learn the grammar as an uninterpreted system, this would be no 
problem, but we learn it as an explanation of what is going on in the 
langauge. As such, it breaks down at this point, one way or the other -- it 
either allows something that it ought not or disallows something that should 
get in. This is waht I mean by saying picking the middle possibility is not 
an obvious choice, even if it is officially the right one.