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

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2003 23:53:04 -0000

Robin:
> On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 10:08:40AM +0000, Martin Bays wrote:
> > 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?)

The rule applied in Academic Lojban is that DA is bound in the localmost
bridi it occurs in, and the binding lasts for as long as the bridi does.
For DA stay bound across sentence boundaries requires use of tu'e.

> 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

If I understand you right as saying that DA stays bound across sentence
boundaries, then we have a dialectal split here, between Organic Lojban
and Academic Lojban.

> 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

I may be missing something, but it seems to me that what is said
about 10.3-5 either conflicts with other more general logical
principles of Lojban, so would have to be investigated by the BF, or
else is correct for the particular examples discussed, but can't
be extrapolated from. The statement "The ``da'' continues with the
same fixed value until a new paragraph or a new prenex resets the
meaning" reads like a generalization, but cannot be correct (if
Lojban is to be consistent), so this is something the BF would have
to rectify.

> 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

Maybe here the getout is the "informally", though the "formally/informally"
distinction is a bit worrying if we don't want to encourage dialect
split. The idea that the prenex of the main bridi has scope over
subsequent sentence connectives is not daft, though, and I can't see any obvious
or insuperable problems with it.

Anyway, this para is much better than the previous one.

--And.