Subject: Re: [lojban] x3 of dasni

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 21:37:34 EDT

In a message dated 8/12/2002 5:54:14 PM Central Daylight Time, 
[email-masked] writes:

<<
> The way I understand {tu'a}, {mi nitcu tu'a lo dinko} and
> {mi nitcu lo dinko} are not compatible types of expression.
> I understand {tu'a lo dinko} as {le du'u lo dinko co'e}, and
> it sounds odd that {nitcu} could take either nails or
> propositions (or whatever du'u are) as its second argument.
> Or maybe we can say {mi nitcu lo dinko a le du'u lo dinko co'e},
> but having the same word for "I need x" and "I need that x"
> does not sound very Lojbanic to me.
>>

As I say somewhere around here, it's an idiom, but a perfectly transparent 
one, I think -- the bare {lo dinko} is just like the {tu'a} one, {le du'u lo 
dinko ce'o} but the absence of the {tu'a} allows extensional moves to 
proceed, as is occasionally desirable.

<<
On the other hand {mi nitcu lo dinko} and {mi nitcu lo'e dinko}
are compatible type of expressions, because both have nails
as the second argument, in one case referred to by extension
and in the other case by intension.
So you say, but since you give no clue about what {lo'e dinko} means, I have 
no reason to believe it other than my trust in you -- which is wearing thin 
at the moment. In the only visible sense of "have as the second argument", 
both {mi nitcu tu'a lo dinko} and {mi nitcu lo dinko} have nails as the 
second argument, in one case in extension, in the other in intension. And we 
know how these critters work, unlike {lo'e}.

<<
What I'm suggesting is that all it does in the sumti place is
blot it, just like {zi'o}, but differs from {zi'o} in that
it blots and adds semantic content. Both leave behind a selbri
with fewer places, and neither names a critter.

As I have said before on this, you can't have it both ways. If it blots it 
is a semantic null. If it not a semantic null then it does not blot but is a 
sumti which adds some kind of reference in that place. How, exactly, would 
this {lo'e broda} add semantic content other than by referring (in which 
case, it is not a blot but merely filling one slot with a particular item). 

<<
I don't have a formal proposal, maybe I will adhere to yours.
But the essence is that {broda lo'e brode} should not entail
{broda da}.
This, of course, goes against your own principle that all bridi places are 
extensional. The nearest thing I have been able to come up with in trying to 
understand this is {lo'e broda} in a place is part of a disjoint tanru (if it 
ain't a thing then its a predicate in Lojban) which has some effect on the 
indicated place -- different from having it filled by a reference to a 
broda, but distinctly brodaish, so different from what {lo'e brode} would do. 
I have no idea how that would work-- in particular, how an explanation of 
what the heck was going on would read, but at least it would make a sort of 
syntactic sense (though there are not otherwise discontinuous unmarked tanrus 
and {lo'e} is clearly a gadri, which play no role in tanrus).

<<
Why can't there be meaningful plugs?
A place that isn't there cannot contribute anything (general theory that the 
meaning of a sentence is a function of its parts).