Subject: the zi'o joke

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2000 21:29:04 EDT

maikl:
<<>From: [email-masked]
li'o
> that <zi'o broda> does not mean that nothing brodas or any other such
>negative thing.

In order words, "zi'o broda" denies that when "broda" lacks x1, there is 
anything missing necessary to the relationship.>>

Not exactly. "zi'o broda" is a new predicate which is satisfied by
the ordered n-tuples (for whatever broda is n+1) that are just like
the n+1-tuples that satisfy "broda" except they lack the first
member. So what is left is all that is necessary for the new
predicate, but may not be enough (indeed, clearly is not enough) for
the old, though the two are obviously related -- and may both fit
nicely to some English expression.

<<>So, <zi'o xajmi y z> means something like "y has a
>sense of humor about z" (i.e., y has found -- or would find >--something 
>funny

But i thought "xajmi" meant "is funny", not "has a sense of humor about". 
When did that one change?>>

When you used "zi'o". Knock off the funny thing from the triple <funny 
thing, person to whom it is funny, what about it is funny to that person> and 
you havwe <person to
whom something is funny, what is funny about it to that person>. This may 
not be quite "has a sense of humor about" but it is close. Maybe "finds 
things like z funny"?

<<> It might be that the negative use of <zi'o> so much put foreward by the
>joking maikl might seriously be more useful than the official use, whose
>meaning -- if not function -- can be covered in other ways.

"ckasu" covers "zi'o xajmi" adequately, of course... But alternative ways to 
say the same thing are very useful to have, all the same.>>

I don't see a lot of connection between "ckasu" and "xajmi" and
certainly can't see how to replace "zi'o xajmi" with anything from
"ckasu". The person involved in "xajmi" is not an agent and the
humor need not involve ridicule, or even minor twitting (indeed not
not invole a ridiculable thing). All I meant was that the truth effect
of "zi'o xajmi" could be achieved by "zo'e xajmi" (I think --
Cowan!), though by very different means.

taral:
<<I always thought that "noda" served the negative purpose.>>

The ancestor of this thread started by noting that using "noda" in certain 
places led to paradoxical results: a bottle which had no content in any world 
was not a botpi and a now-empty bottle is not now a botpi. In spite of 
Lojban's usual "duck" definitions. However, that same bottle may be a botpi 
zi'o (or botpi zi'o fo zi'o, since it probably doesn't have a cap either).