Subject: RE: [lojban] ka + makau (was: ce'u (was: vliju'a

From: "And Rosta" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 02:33:34 +0100

Rob:
> I'm a bit surprised by the sudden urge people have to redefine generally
> accepted uses of {kau}.

Nobody's doing that. Xorxes was arguing that Q-kau could also occur in
main bridi. Current usage of Q-kau is unaffected.

> On Wed, Aug 08, 2001 at 03:33:16AM +0100, And Rosta wrote:
> > OTOH, you could insist that the B sentences would have to be:
> >
> > ma kau goi ko'a zo'u mi cucli tu'odu'u ko'a cliva
> > ma kau goi ko'a zo'u mi do frica tu'odu'u ce'u prami ko'a
> > ma kau poi cmene mi ku'o goi ko'a zo'u I changed ko'a
>
> And I do.
>
> The other sentences you used have been established by the Book and
> usage to all have meaning (A).
>
> ---
>
> In response to another thread which I didn't have time to reply to then: to
> assert that abstractions in Lojban are instantly replaced by their
> referents is absurd. "I know how tall Bob is" does not mean "I know 150
> centimeters" because "evaluating" the abstraction like this removes all
> meaning that it had.

All and any absurdity is due to the Book and ma'oste. Most abstractions
aren't "instantly replaced by their referents", but ni and jei are
ambiguous. As defined in the Book and ma'oste they are indeed "instantly
replaced by their referents"; but as exemplified in the book, they aren't.
In usage, both sorts occur.

> Similarly, in Lojban, {mi djuno le ni galtu po la bob} expresses a different
> (and much more sensical) fact than {mi djuno le 150 centre}.

You're both right and wrong. This is a known problem, which needs to be
fixed. Usage has simply perpetuated the logical ambiguity, so prescription
is called for.

> So someone suggested that any {jei} abstraction should be treated as if it
> wasn't there and replaced by 'true' or 'false', immediately.

That is how jei is understood by the mavens. I think it is accepted that
jei was originally intended to mean "whether", but (as happened elsewhere
in the design) got screwed up in the specification and ended up meaning
"the truth value of".

> First of all, this
> would require some rule which makes {lejei nei jitfa} ungrammatical, or else
> what would you put in its place?

I think you mean {le jei le du'u nei kei jitfa}. But I don't see why such
a rule is required. Lojban isn't the ontology police.

> In addition, this makes the vast majority of sentences involving {jei}
useless.

That remains to be seen. By whichever sense you give it, there are simple
alternative ways of saying whatever can be said with jei.

> {ni} doesn't work this way.

It does. It's exactly parallel; screwed up in exactly the same way.

> {nu} definitely doesn't work this way (events are
> difficult to 'know' out of context). So why should {jei}?

Because that's how it was defined, and usage of it is conflicted.

I agree with you about how things *should* be, but not about how things
currently are.

--And.