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

From: Robin Lee Powell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 09:59:23 -0800

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 10:08:40AM +0000, Martin Bays wrote:
> On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Pierre Abbat wrote:
> > > Also, and relatedly, is {ro boi .ibu poi kacna'u zo'u .ibu broda}
> > > quantifying over .ibu, or is the prenex just giving a subject
> > > restricting whatever .ibu already refers to to natural numbers?
> >
> > It is quantifying over .ibu. See chapter 16, verse 4.
> >
> 
> Yes, but the examples there (as far as I can see) all apply to DA. And
> the scope of a DA cmavo, as the CLL says I forget where, is very short
> - and in particular an {.i} (as opposed to an ijek/ijoik) cancels all
> DA assignments - and since you can only have a prenex at the start of
> a statement, not after an ijek/ijoik, your prenexed DA will never have
> a previous assignment (except what about sub-bridi, say in a du'u? Can
> DA assignments descend?).

Heh.

Many of us (and I think that includes everyone I've spoken to
conversationally on IRC) ignore that as patently stupid, and use da'o
and NIhO to clear da assignments.

Oh, wow.

And it turns out that either everyone who has discussed this is wrong,
or there is direct contradiction in the CLL!

>>From Chapter 16, just after E10.5:

By the rules of predicate logic, the ``ro'' quantifier on ``da'' has
scope over both sentences. That is, once you've picked a value for
``da'' for the first sentence, it stays the same for both sentences.
(The ``da'' continues with the same fixed value until a new paragraph or
a new prenex resets the meaning.) 

Note that the above refers to an example which uses an .ije, but it
*says* that any sentence carries a da.

In S16.14:

In general, the scope of a prenex that precedes a sentence extends to
following sentences that are joined by ijeks (explained in Chapter 14)
such as the ``.ije'' in Example 14.1. Theoretically, a bare ``.i''
terminates the scope of the prenex. Informally, however, variables may
persist for a while even after an ``.i'', as if it were an ``.ije''.
Prenexes that precede embedded bridi such as relative clauses and
abstractions extend only to the end of the clause, as explained in
Section 8. A prenex preceding ``tu'e ... tu'u'' long-scope brackets
persists until the ``tu'u'', which may be many sentences or even
paragraphs later.

It would seem we have a contradiction, yes?

> But (anyway), if you use .ibu in a prenex, or indeed ko'a, it might
> well have a previous assignment still in scope. So how can you be sure
> your prenex is re-assigning?

da'o

> Actually, would bi'u work?

It certainly would for me.

> lo ninmu goi ny. cadzu .i ro boi ny. bi'u poi kacna'u zo'u ny
> kacna'u ja ninmu

Well, it's only a sentence away, so I might get a bit confused, but I
think I could deal with it.

More interestingly, da'o appears to bind to the previous word,
gramatically, so theoretically you could do

lo ninmu goi ny. cadzu .i ro boi ny. da'o poi kacna'u zo'u ny
kacna'u ja ninmu

(I'm assuming you meant ja; ji certainly won't work).

The intent would be to clear just the assignment of da'o, which would be
a new usage AFAIK.

Note, however, that in both cases the poi does *not* appear to be
binding to just the ny. Not sure that's a problem in this case, though.
What's the boi there for anyways?

-Robin

-- 
http://www.digitalkingdom.org/~rlpowell/ *** I'm a *male* Robin.
.i le pamoi velru'e zo'u crepu le plibu taxfu
.i le remoi velru'e zo'u mo .i le cimoi velru'e zo'u ba'e prali .uisai
http://www.lojban.org/ *** to sa'a cu'u lei pibyta'u cridrnoma toi