Subject: Re: ka + makau (was: ce'u (was: vliju'a

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2001 02:30:59 -0000

--- In lojban@y..., "Jorge Llambias" <jjllambias@h...> 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