Subject: Re: [lojban] loi preti be fi lo nincli zo'u tu'e

From: Robert LeChevalier <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 10:19:24 -0500

At 01:33 PM 1/19/03 +0000, Martin Bays wrote:
> Is a jek-connected tanru like {ricfu je ninmu} still a single selbri?

Yes, at least grammatically.

>And
>in that case, what is its place structure, given that {ricfu} and {ninmu}
>have quite different place structures?

If it is in a bridi, the places following the selbri will be interpreted as 
places of ninmu. Places of ricfu have to be attached with "be" and "bei" 
internal to the selbri.

>What's the difference between {LE broda pe BAI LE brode} and {LE broda be
>BAI LE brode}?

Not much. In more complex sentences there might be differences in 
grammatical structure if you attach with pe instead of be. "pe" is 
probably preferred.

>The "imaginary journey" idea doesn't seem to make much sense for some
>FAhA cmavo, such as fa'a, to'o, zo'i. What does {fa'a broda} mean? Or
>indeed {fa'a mo'i broda}? How about {broda fa'a ko'a}? {broda fa'a mo'i
>ko'a} has an obvious interpretation, though again it doesn't fit in with
>an imaginary journey starting from ko'a.

This topic has been much debated, with different answers obtained by 
different people. The new commission writing the dictionary will settle it 
once and for all. My answer would be off the top of my head (and probably 
opposite someone else who would cite chapter and verse to prove me wrong; 
since my book is elsewhere, so I'll let someone else give their 
interpretation of the book's text.

>Is there any general rule for where events happens for the purposes of
>spatial tenses? For example, if I say {mi ca'u catlu}, as I understand it
>that means the {mi catlu} is true at a point in front of me. But does that
>mean I'm looking at something in front of me, or that (paradoxically) I'm
>in front of myself as I look, or what?

In the absence of other context, I would simply read it that you were 
looking forward. Semantic interpretations can sometimes lead to paradoxes, 
and you do the best you can. There are contexts of course where the 
speaker is NOT at the reference, in which case there is an alternative 
interpretation.

>Does {ze'e ro roi ku ganai broda gi brode} mean "for each point of time,
>if broda then brode"

That is how I would understand it.

>or "if (broda over the whole of time) then (brode
>over the whole of time)?
>
> How to use functions with ranges beyond the numbers? E.g. if I have a
>function f:A->B with A and B sets {fy fancu abu noi selcmi ku'o by noi
>selcmi}, what's f(x)? According to jbofi'e, {ma'o fy boi xy} and {le ma'o
>fy boi xy} are both ungrammatical, and does {li ma'o fy boi xy} make
>sense?

You're missing needed grammatical markers. Exactly which ones can be 
elided and still work might take some experimentation, but

vei ma'o fy boi xy works
the complete grammar of the above is
vei ma'o fy boi [te'u] xy [boi] [ku'e] [ve'o]

You can also use li/me'o to flag an expression, but in general only bare 
numbers need no marker to the left to say that you are expressing something 
in the MEX grammar.

> Are there exact rules for how overriding components of a pro-bridi works?
>e.g. in {da zo'u remna .i naku go'i} is the second sentence equivalent to
>{naku da zo'u remna} or {da zo'u naku remna}?

Probably never decided. I would presume the latter, since there are 
alternatives to show the former with go'i, but not the latter.

>Do tenses add up or overwrite? How about attitudinals? seltcita sumti
>with the same tcita? What happens when you bring in connectives? And so
>on.

I think in general I interpret things as additive rather than overwrite 
(go'i being a specific exception, designed for overwriting stuff from a 
prior sentence).

> What happens when more than one modal place is filled in a bridi? E.g. if
>{broda cau ko'a secau ko'e}, is it true that {ko'a caxlu ko'e} or just
>that {ge ko'a caxlu zo'e gi zo'e caxlu ko'e}?

The latter is probably technically correct, but in most contexts, the zo'e 
values would collapse to the former. Modal expressions are abbreviations - 
if you want complete semantic unambiguity, you need to use separate bridi.

>Similarly, is {broda cau
>ko'a cau ko'e} legit, and does it mean the same as {broda cau ko'a .e
>ko'e}?

The book describes what happens if you fill the same place with two 
different values (more likely to be done with FA than with a modal), but 
you can look up as easily as I can whether this results in .e or joi or 
some other non-logical connective. I think it is some non-logical connective.

lojbab

-- 
lojbab [email-masked]
Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc.
2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273
Artificial language Loglan/Lojban: http://www.lojban.org