Subject: RE: [lojban] Tidying notes on {goi}

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 22:29:49 +0100

pc:
> Cowan:
> <IIRC when you quantify a variable that has already been bound,it is just a
> normal quantifier, so the second {su'o da} means "one or more of (the
> existing) da", not very useful.But ro da poi .... re da would mean "two of
> those which etc.">
>
> Well, those are remarkably UNnormal quantifiers in logic, but right for that
> part of lojban that has the standard sumti as quantifier-gadri-bridi.i.e.,
> quantifier-sumti. The point is also correct.

I'm surprised. I'd have thought that there is a one-to-one correspondence
between variables and quantifiers, tho I recognize that what John says is
indeed useful.

> &:
> <I hold that any specific referent can beintroduced into the discourse by
> means of a ko'a, and that{le broda} = {ko'a noi je'u cu'i ke'a broda}.
> Veridical specifics,which are common in English, cannot be rendered in Lojban
> bya gadri and so for these ko'a is the only usage option.>
> A solution to one of our ongoing problems, I suppose, but that does not mean
> it requires retrofitting all the rest of the grammar around {ko'a}, as indeed
> it doesn't.

The only retrofitting involved is to alter the semantics of {goi} slightly,
so that it is no longer synonymous with {no'u}.

> <(Note btw that I take 'incidental' clauses to be nonrestrictive but not
> parenthetical; i.e. as if 'incidental' is a bit of a misnomer.)>
> A piece of Lojban technical terminology a misnomer! What a shocking idea!
> (Is there one in English that really fits?)

'Nonrestrictive', which is the more usual term, in fact.

> Problem: Although {goi} is usually introduced as device for assigning a more
> convenient sumti to carry the freight for a more complex one -- a KOhA for a
> long name or a highly particularized abstract, for example -- often using the
> analogy of the legal "hereinafter called 'the Company,'" the Book assigns it
> another role and writers have used it in still others, with the result that
> its "primary" role gets lost. Further, even in that role, the way {goi} has
> been used has allowed for unclarity: which of the terms connected is to be
> identified with which, assuming that one or the other or both eventually get
> established. While in practice this is usually clear, in theory -- and often
> enough to worry in practice -- it is not.
>
> Proposal (clarification?): {goi} is always defining and always takes the form
> {x goi y}, where y is assigned the value of x.
>
> Support: This agrees with the elementary introduction of {goi} and answers
> the question of which identification to seek when both are lacking or to
> follow when they appear to be inconflict. Other uses of {goi} are covered by
> {no'u}.
>
> Objection. (I really need help here, since the one objection seems to be that
> we sometimes want to do the defining in the reverse order and so need {goi}
> not {no'u}, which is only factual, not defining. This seems to trivial to
> bother with -- and can {goi} take {se} if it really makes a difference?)

(It can't take SE without a grammar change, can it?)

> Summary. This looks like a trivial and acceptable clarification, to be
> agreed to.

Good.

Next, when time permits, is to ask about the difference between
{goi/no'u ... ge'u ku} and {ku goi/no'u ... ge'u}. But time doesn't permit,
so I'll leave that hanging in the air in case someone else wants to pick
up on it.

--And.