Subject: Re: [lojban] Re: Literal and Metaphor (was: pages)

From: Invent Yourself <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2001 10:06:33 -0400 (EDT)

On Fri, 17 Aug 2001, Nick Nicholas wrote:

> cu'u la xod.
>
> >> More to the point, perhaps, a book is a unitary entity, and the Web is
> >> anything but.
>
> >The Bible was written by many authors spanning centuries, yet we think of
> >it as a whole because it's all bound in one cover.
>
> Yup; coherent(ish) whole, running narrative, regarded as a unitary entity
> of reading material by lots of people. I think it passes...
>
> >If an encyclopedia is a cukta,
>
> Maaaaybe it is...
>
> >so is the web.
>
> Well, you know I don't agree, so...

The web is a compilation of work without any single editor. Unlike a
compendium of poetry, selected by an editorial committee. That doesn't
make it less of a work.

There is nothing about "unitary whole" in the def. of cukta. You are
arguing here whether or not the web is a "book", as opposed to whether it
is a "cukta". I take the word "book" in the definition as a pointing
finger, not a hard law. I tried that before and I got fried -- remember my
problems with krici? I learned my lesson the hard way!

> >More generally, how far can we get if we insist upon the most restrictive
> >interpretations possible? That's all good in English, with zillions of
> >words and more each year. In Lojban we only have a handful of gismu, and
> >we have to squeeze an awful lot of mileage out of them!
>
> Real languages work with prototypes. "War and Peace" is a prototypical
> book. The Bible less so, the Encyclopaedia Britannica even less so (who'd
> call it a book in English, after all?

Is this a dialect difference? Encyclopedias are firmly in the book camp
over here.

And I'm talking about English 'book'
> now, not Lojban {cukta}); the Web --- pretty marginal, as 'books' go.
>
> Lojban doesn't do prototype semantics. More fool it, sure, but after all,
> we did sign on for a logical language. (This bears emphasising.) So Lojban
> would *like* you to be able to say categorically that something is or isn't
> a {cukta}.

Ha! Why sign up for an impossible task? I can find annoying boundary cases
for any gismu you hit me with. We can duplicate the long botpi debate for
any gismu.

It might not be possible; but it's desirable; if it's good for
> {botpi} (though I think the whole bottle-requires-lid thing is wrong ---
> but that's by the by), then it's just as good for {cukta}.
>
> It *absolutely* is correct to keep gismu meanings broad. There's a big
> song-and-dance about jgita = violin in Lesson 7, which I put in for that
> very reason. If we claim gismu blanket semantic space (as John and I have
> just redone in the Brochure), then gismu meanings *must* be broad.
>
> But it also makes sense to keep gismu senses distinct from each other,
> where feasible. If it didn't, there'd be no reason to have {litru} distinct
> from {klama}, after all. And that's something that has always been made a
> song-and-dance about in Lojban paedagogy, too.
> Now:
>
> se papri < cukta < se tcidu < datni
>
> Things with pages (physical books) are a subset of books

Are newspapers books? What about a single sheet of paper? With or without
writing?

> Books are a subset of texts

Says who? Because x2 is content? cukta contains x2 which is seltcidu, but
if the cukta1 = cukta2 then there is no need for one of those places. Said
differently, if a book (cukta1) is really just content (cukta2) then the
gismu collapses. Therefore cukta1 != cukta2. A cukta carries seltcidu but
it is not a seltcidu. Said differently, the reader reads the content, not
the book. Let's not confuse the bottle with the soda contained by it.

> Texts are a subset of data

OK.

> I think the Web is a {se tcidu}. I don't think it is a {cukta}. I think the
> distinction is important.

The content is seltcidu, no doubt. And it sure is datni, too. But the web
itself survives being called a cukta.

>
> >The x3 place means to me that somebody (presumably a prenu?) must have
> >authored the cukta, as opposed to, perhaps, calling a cloud or a string of
> >DNA a cukta. Still, since it didn't SAY x3 had to be a prenu, I can stick
> >"nature" or "randomness" in there. A cukta is absolutely anything when I
> >consider it from the cukta perspective, sticking credible values, or zi'o,
> >into the places.
>
> You can use gismu Humpty-Dumpty style if you wish. I am likewise free to
> misunderstand you or disagree with you on its applicability. This is not
> the real issue, because I (Nick) already know you've proposed {balcukta}
> for Web, so anything I say is coloured by that; fine, I have an axe to
> grind, and a counterproposal.
>
> The issue is, rather, is this a good lujvo for Web, *for people other than
> you and me*? If someone sees {balcukta}, will they be able to tell, without
> looking it up, that it means the Web? And is that recognisability a proper
> or valid criterion for whether something is a good lujvo or not?

With lujvo, it's probably possible to prove that such a criterion is
impossible to fill. .i ta'o ca le pu'u finti di'u kei ku mi ze'i kucli le
tergismu be zoi gy. criterion .gy

Will they
> remember it, once they have seen it? Will they rankle against it -- just
> like Jay the other day objected to {selma'o} for 'lexeme' on the Wiki? Is
> {jordatnymu'e} any better? Is {samclupa}? Is {skamrxuebe}? Is {la'ogy. WWW
> gy.}?
>
> Those issues will get decided by the community, as we both have agreed.
> You've made your proposal, I've made mine. Others will likely make others.
> It may be that one prevails. It may well instead end up like Esperanto, a
> language in which I once had a half-hour conversation where I only used the
> word "komputilo" for 'computer', and my interlocutor only used "komputero",
> with neither of us yielding an inch. (In other words, you say tomayto, I
> say tomahto.) It may end up in schism, it may end up in a ukase, it may end
> up with a new gismu, it may end up with us sharing a beverage of our mutual
> choice in a year's time, laughing about the folly of it. But in my opinion,
> it's out of our hands now; and I want to avoid the primordial Lojbanist sin
> of making the same arguments over and over.
>
> That's one thing. The other thing is the issue of what do gismu mean. To
> me, if you have to use {zi'o}, that indicates something is wrong --- and
> likely, that you should be picking another gismu. Likewise if you ignore
> the presuppositions of the gismu list, including that author x3s are
> animate rational agents, authoring purposefully and not epiphemomenally or
> randomly. (These are presuppositions built into the English word 'author',
> I contend. It doesn't *say* you have to put in a {prenu} as x3, but it very
> strongly implies it.) If your thingummy is written by nature, or
> randomness, or zi'o, I claim it's not a {cukta} (as I understand it at
> least), but a {se tcidu}; and my impression is that this is standard
> thinking in Lojban. Again: natural languages don't work like this; they
> admit shades of grey, prototypes, exceptions, etc. But that is not what I
> understand Lojban to be.

You take such a hard line that you are coming very close to claiming the
use of zi'o is illegal. Isn't that a sign that you're going too far? Maybe
not -- perhaps you lived through the actual debates over zi'o's inclusion,
whereas for me it's a given fact.

> I may be wrong; wouldn't be the first time. :-) You can absolutely work
> against that attitude. You can also absolutely say that the hardliners will
> be vanquished by language reality; and I'm inclined to agree with you. The
> community may well end up siding with the pragmaticists over the hardliners
> in this issue, and many others; that's the game we've all signed up for.
> But I'm left with a question and a statement.
>
> The question is And's: Why Lojban, then? If you do object to Lojban's
> finickiness in the semantics of gismu (the binary opposition thing, at
> least), then I conclude that the semantic finickiness is not what has
> attracted you to Lojban. If I am right (and I may well be grievously
> misconstruing you, which I can only regret), then what is it about Lojban
> that you like, and cannot already find in a natural language (or
> Esperanto)? I'm not trying to be cute; I'm honestly confused here.

.o'o

1mai la lojban. goi ko'a na carmi logji ki'u le du'u le kamlogji na stura
su'o jufra {I'd like to buy a lujvo for "prenex".}

2mai .i da jimte ro na'e cmaci bangu le kamsatci .i mi mo'u ciksi fo tu'a
le mi notci pe la balvi

3mai .i ka'u ko'a gerna smuni prane .i ku'i na smuni prane

4mai .i ko'a pu trina mi le ka glico frica je kambebna jinsa sai

5mai .i aicai mi bazu ciska le banli ru'e selsku bau ko'a .i ga'inai ganai
mi tarti do gi na kakne .i le ka ce'u smuni vlipa cu sarcu mi .i na
mutmi'i bangu

>
> The statement is, of course, in Lojban.
>
> .i le logji smuske xanru; noi cu'uku lojdarlu po'o; cu ji'a cmima le'i lojbo
> .i mi ji'a go'i .i da joi mi ji'a jdice

.uinai ki'a xanru .i le nu pilno "cu'uku" cu na slabu

> ***
>
> ni'o mi na nelci lenu mi darlu .i do pu lifri la'edi'u
> .i mi zgana ku'i lenu mi ce do simfrica leka ce'u jimpe ledu'u le bangu cu
> mokau
> .i mi na birti tu'a le jalge be la'edi'u
> .i ku'i mi co'a xanku tu'a leka le bangu cu ba stodi

.uinai ki'a xanku

> ni'o mi puzi pilno zo ce'u .i mi cabdei jai banzu fai lenu mi tavla tu'a zo
> ce'u

.i'i

> .i mi ji'a na birti ledu'u mi djica lenu rere'u tavla
> .i ku'i mi ba stidi la'a lenu casnu su'o cuntu poi pu se tavla ku'o fa le
> mriste lojbo ji'a
> .i gonai smuske srera fa tu'a lu ce'u no'u mi li'u; gi le velcli ba .ei se
> galfi
>
> .i mi pendo rinsa fe'omi'e nitcion.
>
> Nick Nicholas, TLG, UCI, USA. [email-masked] www.opoudjis.net
> "Most Byzantine historians felt they knew enough to use the optatives
> correctly; some of them were right." --- Harry Turtledove.
>
>
>
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>

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