Subject: [lojban] Re: Nick will be with you shortly

From: Jordan DeLong <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 26 Feb 2003 20:24:14 -0600

On Thu, Feb 27, 2003 at 12:09:13PM +1100, Nick Nicholas wrote:
> cu'u la djordan.
> 
> >The changes people want to loi aren't backward compatible. They
> >range from complete gadri overhauls, to redefining the meaning of
> >"lo".
> 
> Since I spent two months trying to make my solution backwards 
> compatible (most of it after you gave up on the discussion, I 
> believe), I'll thank you not to speak for me.

I was speaking about xod's solution and And's solution (at least
the ones that I looked at).

> Craig, your veto is overstated. *Changes* need to be strongly 
> justified, this I agree with, and it is in the charter. (Contra 
> Jordan, I think there is a problem with loi, though, because I have a 
> different underlying philosophy of lojban, which we ay eventually 
> need to thrash out --- namely, that while Grice is well and good for 
> every day use, there must whensoever possible be explicit mechanisms 
> of disambiguation in place if people need them.)
[...]
> loi can express four things, and there are no compelling 
> disambiguations in the grammar (though you can approach it with 
> paraphrase): collective (a bunch of sharks), substance (some shark 
> [meat]), the Kind of shark ("Mr Shark"), the Any Shark (I'm 
> drawing/seeking/needing a shark, any shark). Jordan contends that 
> Grice should always tell you the difference between collective and 
> substance; but if I am to have only Grice at my disposal, Lojban is 
> much less clear than English (which allows you to have mass and count 
> nouns); and no, I do not want to settle for that. The jboskeist core 
> want to have different gadri for collective and substance; but that 
> means loi is not backward compatible, which I cannot accept either. 

We should be realistic about this though: Simply based on vocabulary
alone, it is unlikely that Lojban will ever be as clear as English.
Lojban is something to have fun with, and constant redesign and/or
unrealistic goals will prevent it from ever getting off the ground.
If you want a fully expressive language, pick a natlang, if you
want a formal system, use one. Lojban is a deformed baby. We can
only expect so much from it.

That said, I actually think Nick's solution below may have some
promise as a sane way to satisfy all sides (provided it does preserve
(correct) existing usage, and also provides And and whoever else
with what they want). And I do agree that Kind and Any are real
problems.

[...]
> My solution (to be refined and what-not):
> 
> Collective: loi [so'a/su'eci'ino] finprcarka
> Substance: loi [ci'ipa] finprcarka
> Kind: [tu'o lo finprcarka] => lo'ei carka (new LAhE, but 
> paraphrasable as normal individual sumti with quantification turned 
> off)
> Any: either Propositionalism (what Lojban does now --- prenex 
> of embedded clause), or Kind, depending on the selbri; [fi'u ro loi 
> finprcarka] (in the right contexts).

Does this preserve the "loi nanmu pu klama le lunra" usage? I can
understand this in terms of lojbanmass, but not in terms of either
substance or collective, and I think it is a very useful usage to
have. Do you consider this to be Kind (which is what I thought it
was)? But you use "lo'ei" for Kind, and my understand of xorxes'
"lo'ei" doesn't fit with that.

> The Collective/Substance distinction is fully optional (so both still 
> get to be lojbanmasses), and stated on the inner quantifier; but the 
> distinction can be made if people choose to. (Right now, that just 
> plain isn't possible.) The Kind ("Mr Shark") is disambiguated from 
> the lojbanmass by giving it a new LAhE, though it can also be stated 
> (prolixly) in terms of existing sumti structures and turned off 
> quantification. (Anything true of the Kind is true of the lojbanmass, 
> but I'm not convinced the converse is true.) The Any problem (how to 
> say Any shark as distinct from A shark in the completely general 
> case) admits of several solutions, none perfect, although we're now 
> putting more thought into it; when we go into non-existing entities, 
> we add something like {tu'o lo se ka co'e} or something (to be 
> thrashed out), as distinct from {lo co'e} (which commits to existence 
> of the referent; And, this was the coup John and I pulled on you in 
> NYC.)

We need a new gadri for Any. tu'o doesn't work with lo (viewed it
as a mo'ezi'o), because of the existing semantics of lo.

> OK. You'll see a proper proposal in a few months. The BPFK will still 
> start slow, and will start in a week or so. Back to your regularly 
> scheduled flamewar.

vi'o

-- 
Jordan DeLong - [email-masked]
lu zo'o loi censa bakni cu terzba le zaltapla poi xagrai li'u
sei la mark. tuen. cusku