From jjllambias@hotmail.com Tue Feb 29 08:34:38 2000 X-Digest-Num: 379 Message-ID: <44114.379.2097.959273826@eGroups.com> Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 08:34:38 PST From: "Jorge Llambias" Subject: Re: Use and abuse of sets la lojbab cusku di'e >Whether common everyday usage will be >"enough", there are a lot of cmavo that are even less likely to be used >(mathematical transpose?), and we are talking only 3 cmavo plus maybe some >of the JOI (which have seen use, especially ce'o). No doubt there are a lot of other cmavo that are even less useful. There are whole selma'o that will hopefully never be used. But that doesn't justify the set-related cmavo. > >Loglanists use the word "set" to describe what we > >call "mass". > >JCB at the last resolved his intent for the word "set" and lost his chief >logician over his decision, so obviously there was less than unanimity >there. Yes, that's what I read. The arguments were presented by JCB himself, so probably biased towards his position, but even so, I don't see the benefit of the set articles. Every time they are used in Lojban they can either be substituted by masses without loss of clarity, or they should be substituted by masses because they're not used correctly. When you start to learn the language you imagine that since they're there you have to use them, and that's how they get misused. >I believe I looked at what he said and found that he had gone back >to what we now convey as "ro lo" (their lea), but I may be recalling >incorrectly. I think you are recalling incorrectly. Their sets now correspond exactly to our masses, except perhaps for the default quantifier. Their leu = our {lei}, their lea = our {piro loi}. This is explained in lesson 11 of L3. >Prior to that they had no equivalent to "lo" They still don't, they use "ne" (Lojban {pa}). But even Lojban {lo} is not strictly necessary, since {lo broda} is always replaceable by {su'o broda}, and inner quantifiers with {lo} are practically useless. >(their "lo" is >our "loi", except when it is our "lei") I disagree. We don't really have anything quite like their "lo", which is not really very well defined anyway. It has several different translations to Lojban. They use it for our "observatives", so they would say "Lo fagro!" for "Fire!", whereas we just say {fagri} plus perhaps an attitudinal. They use it for "I'm waiting for a taxi", or "I need a box", and things like that, that have to do with reduced scope and opaque contexts and such, for which we don't have a final determination in Lojban, either {tu'a} or, the one I prefer, {lo'e}. If I had to choose a one word translation for Loglan "lo" it would be {lo'e}, but it doesn't really have anything to do with averages. >We split out the triple descriptors based on differences in usage within >Loglan, so there somewhere was discussion supporting each of the >interpretations of "set". JCB at last decided to stop contradicting >himself, and chose the most useful given that TLI did not have the triple >descriptors. I like the final state of the Loglan articles better than the Lojban one. Fortunately the Lojban system can evolve painlessly and naturally to the Loglan one if it proves to be better. >TLI Loglan has no cmavo for most of the needed MEX structures. Aren't they lucky! What do you mean by "needed"? They are not used in Lojban yet, so it must be a theoretical need. The recent translation we did about the hunger problem had lots of numbers and statistics (I thought it was excelent as a test of Lojban's abilities for handling numbers, which is rather tricky) and we did not use a single MEX structure. Where is this supposed need coming from? >We >considered it part of fulfilling the JCB commitment to have a MEX solution, >so we need set description on that basis alone, even if it is not >particularly necessary for everyday use. A MEX solution to what problem? co'o mi'e xorxes ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com