From mark@kli.org Sun Aug 05 19:31:04 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: mark@kli.org X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_2_0); 6 Aug 2001 02:31:03 -0000 Received: (qmail 8327 invoked from network); 6 Aug 2001 02:31:03 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.26) by m8.onelist.org with QMQP; 6 Aug 2001 02:31:03 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO n9.groups.yahoo.com) (10.1.10.48) by mta1 with SMTP; 6 Aug 2001 02:31:03 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: mark@kli.org Received: from [10.1.10.120] by fl.egroups.com with NNFMP; 06 Aug 2001 02:31:03 -0000 Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 02:30:59 -0000 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: ka + makau (was: ce'u (was: vliju'a Message-ID: <9kkvh3+f3h7@eGroups.com> In-Reply-To: User-Agent: eGroups-EW/0.82 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Length: 2831 X-Mailer: eGroups Message Poster X-Originating-IP: 162.33.229.2 From: mark@kli.org --- In lojban@y..., "Jorge Llambias" wrote: > > la xod cusku di'e > > >Going back a moment, "le jei broda" = a truth value; a real in [0, 1]. The > >ANSWER to the question "xu broda" is the same. > > Not really, at least not the full answer. The full answer to > {xu broda} is either {ja'a broda} or {na broda}, or if you like > something in between: {ja'aru'e broda}, etc. The full answer > is never a real in [0,1], and {le du'u xukau ...} makes reference > to the full answer, a full bridi. This kind of has to be true, but unfortunately may be at odds with the RefGram (I'm too lazy to look it up). I'm referring not so much to {jei} but another abstractor: {ni}. The refgram even contradicts itself. Consider chapter 11: ## Semantically, a sumti with ``le ni'' is a number... And yet, we have the example sentence ## le pixra cu cenba le ni ce'u blanu ## The picture varies in blueness. But if a {ni} abstraction is a number, then the sentence really means something like "The picture varies in .138"! This is the same problem as {jei} (since {jei} is sort of like {ni} with a restricted range). In order to use {ni} as it's used pretty much by everyone everywhere, we have to say that a {ni} abstraction is also a sort of indirect question, sort of like {du'u broda sela'i makau}. Aha! So this is an example where indirect questions are not restricted to {djuno}-like selbri! Whew, at least that's answered. But anyway, yes, what I mean is, the {ni} abstraction is "the identity of the amount" or perhaps "something about the amount" To use circular definitions, {le du'u le klani cu mokau}. And maybe that's also what {makau} means, again circularly: {le du'u makau klama} == {le du'u le klama cu mokau}. Which may seem vacuous, as {ma}=={lo mo}, but I'm thinking of it in a more explicit sense: "[I know] who comes" is "[I know] something important about the one who comes (namely, identity)." By this kind of recasting, we can see {ni} as another form of du'u+kau, and I think that's a reasonable way of looking at it. {jei} SHOULD thus be {du'u xukau}, but was prevented from being so by people saying "well, it expands to a [0,1] value!" This goes against the refgram example, though: ## 6.3) mi ba jdice le jei ## la djordj. cu zekri gasnu [kei] ## I [future] decide the truth-value of ## (George being-a-(crime doer)). ## I will decide whether George is a criminal. {xukau} would have worked perfectly in this case, which would imply that {jei} should work where we all use {xukau}. Because let's face it, {jei} is pretty useless otherwise, just like {ni} is useless if it's only a number. This may raise sumti-raising problems in those comparatively rare cases where we DO use {ni} to be a number... Am I raving? ~mark