Subject: First cutting for a new record

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 16:34:41 EDT

Anaphora in Lojban, as in natural languages, is less than perfect. There 
is not always a short expression to recall some earlier expression and, even 
when there is, it may not be unequivocal or it may be too complicated to use 
or have understood in the speech flow. The situation is further complicated 
by some conflicts among various presentations of the anaphoric systems and by 
the apppearance of some casess that do not seem to have been considered or 
dealt with. 
In an ideal system, every sumti -- and every bridi for Lojban's system -- 
would come with a label attached that could be call up at any later time to 
recall that item. And there would be a device for combining labels into new 
ones as well. Formal logic, when presented in a language which allows no 
terms but bound variables, comes close to this for sumti, though it cannot 
combine labels easily and is no help for bridi. But that formal logic is 
entirely written and often confuses even those most familiar with it. For a 
language that is ever spoken, such a system runs through the available memory 
too rapidly to be practical (and, in the spoken language, there is no 
external record to return to to check or refresh). A variation that might 
seem somewhat more useful is a structural approach: items are tagged not in 
order but by their position in sentences and subsentences. It may be easier 
to remember what was the subject of the second sentence back than to remember 
what was sumti 27 or the one 15 sumti ago. But, of course, this uses up 
memory as fast as the other -- or even faster, though a back-counting version 
(as suggested by two of the previous examples) could work better, by dropping 
sentences after a certain time (isn't it 6+/- 2?) And a sentence of any 
serious complexity (subordinate clauses of various sorts with their own 
subordinates) might exhaust the limits even with a single sentence.
As a practical matter, then, we need something to fit the memory wiring 
of the human brain that will still geet us a good ways toward dealing with 
common situations: 1) anaphora within a single sentence (loosely, reflexivity 
and reciprocity issues, but others as well), 2) generally, picking up terms 
from earlier (and, Lojban being Lojban, later) sentences, within some 
reasonable limits and 3) combining references into new terms efficiently.
1. The Book says that {vo'V} refer to the terms occupying the 
corresponding places (a=1, e=2,...) of "the present bridi"; the cmavo list 
says of "the main bridi of the sentence." While these *could* be taken as 
meaning the same thing (most clearly the latter case), they seem naturally to 
conflict when a sentence contains subordinate bridi in abstractions or 
relative clauses (or quotations? or...? -- this is apparently a further 
unresolved unclarity). This basic problem got resolved -- with some 
hesitations --in favor of the second interpretation ("main bridi") on the 
grounds that it covered the most cases and that upper level sumti were more 
likely to be repeated in lower levels.
What then about cases of reciprocity and reflexivity on lower levels? 
One answer was the back-counting RI series and the other usual techniques, 
imprecise as they might be. The second was the introduction of {nei}, a 
repetition of 'this bridi' (with all the possibilities for paradox that that 
allows) to be used in descriptions {le nei}, {le se nei} etc. for the various 
places -- replacing the first interpretation of {vo'V}. Paralleling that 
came {no'a} with subscripts for the supervening bridi in embedded structures: 
{le no'a} is the first sumti of the immediately supervening bridi, {le 
no'axire} for the first of the bridi above that and so on. {le no'axiro} 
always comes down just to {vo'a}, the first sumti of the topmost (main) 
bridi. This reduction allows that the default subscript on {no'a} is {pa} 
rather than {ro}, as was also suggested. This technique only works for 
linear superordination and does not deal with (nor provide ready expansion 
to) parallel cases: picking up a term from another bridi subordinate to one 
to which the present bridi is also subordinate. These cases fall back upon 
the general 'solutions' (though one can imagine a devise for going up to a 
bridi picking out a sumti in it and then running down to a term in that 
embedded bridi). 
The {nei} and especially {no'a} forms present some problems. With {nei} 
the question is when is 'the present bridi' there? Can one refer, in the 
first place, to {le te nei}, before the third place --or indeed the selbri -- 
has been uttered? Lojbab is for the negative, but that begins to get into 
counting problems: what if the first sumti of a bridi is a subordinate bridi 
and we then want to refer back up -- is the immediately super bridi (whose 
selbri has not yet been uttered) to count as {no'a} or not? It is not yet 
even {nei} in itself, how can it be {no'a} to the one below. In the case of 
{ri} the rules held that it could not count a sumti in which it was included 
in its count. A similar rule here would quite possibly cut the whole system 
off at the beginning, depending on the structure. On the other hand, it 
seems odd to say that a bridi exists when there is no selbri (witness the 
history of the terms, still found in places in the English 'explanations'). 
With {no'a} the issue is what does it mean used as a bridi alone rather 
than in a description (one can imagine the same problem for {nei}, but less 
plausibly). Officially, this question is unanswered, but Lojbab favors 
taking subordinate {no'a} out as separate sentences and replacing {no'a} by 
{go'i} then taking that as the correct interpretation of the original. This 
assumes that the transformation can always be done effectively and also 
forces a particular interpretation on the results, leaving the question of 
how to formulate other possibilities as simply. The three cases so far 
discussed are

1- la djan ba klama lo zarci pu le nu la meris no'a

A) John will go to some store before Mary goes to it.
B) John will go to some store before Mary goes to one.

2- la djan ba klama ro zarci pu le nu la meris no'a

A) John will go to each store before Mary goes to it.
B) John will go to every store before Mary goes to any.

3- la djan ba klama le zdani be vo'a pu le nu la meris no'a

A) John will go to his home before Mary goes there.
B) John will go to his home before Mary goes to hers.

The {go'i} solution solves 3 in favor of a, with b being { la djan ba klama 
le zdani be vo'a pu le nu la meris no'a ro'a}. The other two are still being 
calculated out -- suggesting that the effective transformation condition may 
not be met. (2 also has a third suggested reading "John will go to every 
store before Mary does" i.e. "before Mary goes to every store" "john will 
complete the store rounds before Mary completes it" but that seems Englishly 
inspired.)

2. Picking terms from other sentences more accurately that the vague 
{ri/a/u} or literals suggests the use of {go'i/e/a/u }-- and [yech, ptui] 
{go'o} -- like the {nei} and {no'a} within a sentence, now looking at bridi 
in order not in subordination. The {le se go'i} is the second sumti in the 
preceding sentence and so on. The basic give four sentences, probably as 
many as can be practically held in mind with any accuracy. And, of course, 
if the sentences are complex, much more than can be held in mind. The 
complex sentences raises again the problem of subordinate sumti; the system 
only gets the topmost sumti, not sumti that are buried in those sumti at some 
depth. On the other hand, a device for digging up those treasures is likely 
to be as long as -- and much less clear than -- simply repeating the 
original. At least the basic descriptions with {go'V} are officially legal.

3. "Jack challenged Bob to a duel. They agreed to fight on Isle Duello. 
They arrived before dawn" Translate into Lojban, being brief. No can do. 
Lojban has no immediate device for collapsing two separate terms into a 
"they" nor for combining two places into one as in "agree." You end up with 
something like (though surely much better than) {la djek talsa la bab lenu 
relmemda'a .i ra tugni ru soi vo'e fo lenu damba vi la ildu,elos i. la djek. 
e la bab. klama tu pu le cermurse}. So far as I can find there is no 
suggestion on how to deal with these cases -- either one -- within the 
present framework, except to bite the bullet and spell it all out as above. 
The possible experimental devices for either of these are not yet clearly nor 
completely laid out, but hopefully both of the faults will be handled soon, 
now that the issue is raised (yet again?).

And always remember: repetition too is anaphora.