Subject: Re: Some ideas/questions (long)

From: "oskar2379" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 15:25:51 -0000

Sorry about posting this twice, I don't know where the other one 
went. I've never used these boards before so I am kind of lost.

In response to John Cowan,

> It would also eliminate the difference between tanru and lujvo, an
> essential Loglan/Lojban concept.

But why is this seperation so important?

> There is nothing wrong with using "prenu cmalu", a person type of 
small
> thing, rather than vice versa. In symmetrical tanru of this type,
> either order is usually fine.

Yes, but then again there are a lot of asymmetrical tanru (your book 
has a whole section on it...there's pixra cukta (picture 
book)...cinfo kerfa (lion mame)...and even fenki litki, the example I 
used). Is this order used in apprehension that lojban learners will 
be mostly English-speaking?

> Yes, that works too. The point of tanru is that sometimes one has 
no
> desire to be precise.

I was thinking that, if words were always one syllable long, there 
would be less of a tendancy for people to take shortcut-routes that 
sacrifice clarity.

> > The problem arises with something like 'fenki litki ' (crazy 
liquid, 
> > or liquid that causes you to be crazy). 'fenki' is {x1 is crazy 
by 
> > standard x2}, there is no causative agent in the predicate, so 
this 
> > tanru is false.
> 
> Not false, simply not fully explicit.

The reason I said false is that there is nothing in fenki that 
*causes* craziness, so I don't see how that meaning could be 
extracted.

> You are reading too much into a casual example. Lojban does not 
classify
> relationships this way.

You mean there are more specific classifications?

> The point is that an object which doesn't have any contents, at 
least
> potentially, has no claim to be a kabri.

But then, shouldn't kabri be a lujvo? It could be like my 'le jubme 
klama' example, only it would be 'le kabri vasru' (again, using my 
word order).

> Because the presence of the lid is what makes it a botpi rather than
> a kabri or perhaps a patxu or even something else. "Lid" can be
> identified with cork or stopper as well.

So what about the x2 place of gacri? We could say 'le botpi se gacri' 
to specify a jar that is covered.

If we applied this kind of method to the entire language, until every 
word follows the system, we could potentially eliminate a lot of 
words and thus have enough three-letter combinations for every word.

> Emotion predicates generally have a place for purpose, for reasons 
of
> both convenience and metaphysical necessity: to weep is not merely 
to
> shed tears (as in the presence of raw onions), but rather to have an
> emotional response *to* something.

To explain that you weep because of an onion, could you not use the 
physical causation ri'a?
And emotional response could use the motivational mu'i.

> 
> > x4 and x5 are more complicated. The 'under conditions' in frati 
> > sounds like a connective to me (the logical connective IFF) and 
thus 
> > shouldn't be in the predicate.
> 
> The point is that the response or reaction x2 to the stimulus x3 
depends
> not only on the subject x1 but also on the environment x4, and it 
is not
> possible to say which is logically prior, the subject or the 
environment.

But if it *depends* on something, wouldn't the statement be 
conditional?
I understand that the reaction also depends on x1, but x1 is what 
commits the action so that's a given.

> 
> > The 'as x4' in minra refers to the 
> > state of the direct object after the action.
> 
> Minra4 is the reflection or echo, the imago of x2.

Right, so the state of x2 after it has been reflected is x4 (sorry if 
my wording is confusing).

> 
> > Similarly, the x2 in 
> > klama refers to the state of x1 after the action (or more 
> > specifically, the location).
> 
> It does refer to the location, but *not* to the thing located there.

In other words, it refers to the part of x2 that was changed (the 
location). In minra, the part of x2 that was changed is the image. 
This is the connection I was making.

> You are not allowing for auto-locomotion. The earth klama, but it 
does
> not benji (there is no agent pushing it around the sun, except
> metaphorically).

Couldn't you just delete the x1 place of benji with zi'o? That would 
eliminate the need for having two seperate predicates.

> 
> > minra seems to be another oddball that combines two predicates 
into 
> > one, that is, 'x1 reflects x2 as x3' and 'x1 sends/transmits x2 
to 
> > x3...' and thus should be seperated.
> 
> Eh? Minra has four distinct roles: mirror/reflector, object of
> reflection, observer/viewpoint, and imago. Your first version 
omits the
> viewpoint, which is metaphysically unsustainable: the reflection 
you see
> is not the one I see, if only because of our differing locations.

I always thought of it this way. An object reflecting something is 
seperate from sending it to another location. But then again, I may 
have misunderstood x3. Is it sort of like 'by standard/frame of 
referance'? It sort of messes up the system because all the other 'by 
standards' are attributive like 'foolish' and 'small'.

> Fanva *is* an oddball; it's designed to handle all the cases, though
> it's typical for actual sentences about translation to default any
> or all of x3, x4, x5.

'x1 translates x2 to x3' could handle all cases if you specified, 
somehow, the language of x2 (direct object) and the language of x3 
(later state). Such as, I translate this which is in Latin to this 
which is in German. Is that too far of a stretch?

> 
> We try as much as possible to omit agent places in favor of either
> cause places or nothing at all, because they can always be added
> back with gasnu. There are of course many exceptions.

exceptions...*shudder* :)

---

From: "oskar2379" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 15:25:51 -0000

small

no

liquid, 
by 
this 

classify

least

of
to

thus 
depends
is not
environment.

does

into 
to 
omits the
you see