Re: replies re. ka & mamta be ma

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

And:
> > Most members taken individually or all of them at the same time?
> Even the English isn't that perspicuous! I guess I meant {le
> sohe cmima}, tho I can't actually see what practical difference
> it makes.

You said that {kau} is not essential.
I said that that is true of every cmavo.
You said that surely not about most members of SE, LE, PA.
I maintain that yes about each member separately, I am NOT
saying we can do without all (or most) of them at the same time.

> I don't understand how you go from the Lojban question to the
> English one.

This is the question in question:
> > > Surely not most members of, say SE, LE, PA?
> > i pau so'e cmima ji lei so'e cmima
> > Most members taken individually or all of them at the same time?

The question was not a full bridi. You can add {co'e} if you like.
Then it becomes: <<"Surely it is not true" about most members
individually, or about all of them at the same time?>>

Your claim in English (or rhethorical question, rather) already had
the selbri elided.

> As I understood the L Q an appropriate answer
> would be {a} or {e} & I've no idea what that'd mean.

{a} would mean that you were talking about at least one of the two
possibilities, but you are not telling me which one.

{e} would mean that you meant both possibilities.

I was expecting either {enai} or {na.e}.

> > i ko pilno lu le jufra poi mi ca co'a [> caho] cusku ke'a li'u
>
> I note with pleasure your non-literal use of {ko}. I very
> much doubt anyone will have been admonishing you for this
> flagrant breach of prescribed usage.

I'm not really being all that non-literal. I'm just eliding the
condition "in case you want to avoid the use of {dei}".

> > i go'i inaja no cmavo cu traji se nitcu
> That's like saying neither of my kidneys is traji se nitcu.

Exactly. In the same sense, there is no cmavo that is absolutely
necessary.

> I can survive on one kidney, but I very much traji nitcu
> a kidney (i.e. {mi nitcu lo nu da *kidney* mi} [how come
> there's no gismu for kidney??]).

Right. I never claimed we can survive without any cmavo at all.

> Is the point you have (obscurely!)

Obscurely!!!?? ;)

I clearly stated that {la'e di'u jetnu sera'a ro cmavo}.
You seemed to interpret it as {piro loi cmavo}, but that's not
what I said.

> been trying to make
> that sohe loi cmavo se nitcu, but na ku sohe lo cmavo se
> nitcu?

That {piso'e loi cmavo cu se nitcu} may or may not be true,
I'm inclined to think it's not, but could well be wrong.

(Of course, I'm taking "need" in your absolutist way, in the
sense that you need it to express something otherwise
inexpressible, not that you need it to make the use of the
language easy.)

I'm sure {naku so'e lo cmavo cu se nitcu} is true.

> Are you also saying sohe lo cmavo ku na ku se
> nitcu? (which is different, unless {sohe} means "over 50%")

I fail to see the difference. I know that with {ro} and
{su'o} the claims are very different, but with {so'e} they
seem to be the same.

> Am I right in thinking you'd say I need suho loi kidney
> but not suho lo kidney?

At the risk of falling back into an old discussion, I'd say
{do nitcu xe'e su'o lo do kidney}. I don't know much about
these things, but I don't suppose that there is any one
preferred kidney that you need, unless you only have one.

{su'o loi kidney} is "at least one mass of kidney", and
{su'o lo kidney} is "at least one kidney", I would tend to
never use the first.

> [Incidentally, any idea what {lo sohe broda} could possibly
> mean?]

Nope. The so'V series is not really a series. {so'a} and {so'e}
are quite different from the other three, because they need
a reference (ro) while the others are subjective but without a
reference (so'i, so'o, and so'u can each be equal to ro).

Since the inner quantifier of {lo} is always {ro}, anything that
can't be equal to {ro} makes little sense there (so'a, so'e,
me'iro, etc).

> > > > i zo do'e joi zo poi ka'e basti zo fi'o
> > > How would that work? (E.g. if a selbri has 3 fiho modals)
> > i <<lu do'e da poi broda ku'o do'e de poi brode ku'o do'e di poi brodi
> > li'u>> cu basti <<lu fi'o broda da fi'o brode de fi'o brodi di li'u>>
>
> I defer to your greater knowledge of Lojban,

Very unwise of you.

> but this is not
> how I thought {fiho} works. In your version with {dohe}, the
> semantic relationship of the sumti places filled by da, de
> and di are not specified.

While in the {fi'o} version they are? I don't see what makes one
more specific than the other, if you include the appropriate poi
clause.

> I don't even know if they have to
> be different sumti-places. It depends on whether
>   klama fo da ku fo de .i
>   klama bai da ku bai de
> are grammatical.

Grammatical they sure are, at least in the sense of parsable
(except for the {ku}, that should not be there, since {da} is already
a closed sumti).

> In contrast, I thought in {broda fiho brode da}, da is a sumti
>  of broda, but not necessarily of brode, and
> brode serves simply to identify the semantic relationship
> between the broda selbri and the fiho sumti.

Yes, all that is true. But how is that semantic relationship any
more specific than with {do'e}+appropriate explanatory sub-clauses?
In other words, is there anything that {fi'o} allows you to say,
that you couldn't express without it?

> > >  I thought {X goi Y}
> > > assigns the referent of X to Y, replacing any previous
> > > referent Y previously had.
> > Or the referent of Y to X, depending which is the assignable
> > variable.
> But if they're both assignable variables, is there a priority
> for which has its prior assignment overridden?

I don't know. I would think it is very bad style in any case.

> > To avoid the use of {goi}, you can simply use a lujvo
> > meaning "assign",
>
> I doubt it. The lujvo wd make a claim about the way the
> world is, which is wholly different from assigning a value
> to a variable.

Ok, use the full sentence: "From now on I will use "ko'a" to
refer to the referent of "<sumti>". No {goi} required.

> > or you can avoid pronouns altogether, which are nothing but
> > convenient optional add-ons anyway ;)
>
> I don't think so. Assignable pronouns are virtually the only way to
> guarantee continued constancy of reference. If I keep
> on using {le nanmu} there's no assurance I'm talking about
> the same bloke, but if I use {koha} you can be 100% sure.

You use {le nanmu} the first time. Then use "{le nanmu} that I just
mentioned", then "{le nanmu} mentioned twice before", etc. If wordiness
is not a problem, you can make sure your audience is 100% sure which
one you mean. (And 100% bored with the speech.)

> > > I wonder if you genuinely misunderstand me. If we have 2 ways
> > > of saying the same thing, only one of them is motivated by
> > > requirements of expressiveness.
> > i pe'i zasti fa re tadji na.e ki'o tadji be le nu cusku roda
>
> {kiho}? (I can't get much sense from {kihe, kihu, kiha}
> either.) Kihe kihe kihe. Xe jimpe mi noda.

ki'o  =  ,  =  ,000  =  1,000  (by convention).

> > i le ma tadji cu ckaji le ka jicmu
>
> The more general method is more basic. But that's a separate
> issue.

And if I ask which method is more general, I suppose it is the
more basic one?  :)


> > > It may be that (and this is
> > > true of SE/LE vs NOI) that neither is plainly more basic than
> > > the other, but one of them is redundant.
> > i ienai
> > i tu'a le remoi ka'e se rivbi sepi'o loi clani jufra
>
> I don't understand. Something concerning NOI can be avoided
> by using long sentences - and this is a reason for your
> disagreeing with me? Do you mean {remei}?

Yes, I did mean {remei}, sorry.

> > i mu'a <<lu lo mlatu cu kalte lo smacu li'u>> ka'e se basti
> > <<lu ko'a mlatu i ko'e smacu i ko'a kalte ko'e li'u>>
> > i mi na pilno zo lo a zo poi
> > i ku'i le remoi cu mutce selplixau
>
> First, is it the case that unassigned {koha} will behave like
> {da}?

No, I don't think so. And I don't think I'm using it as {da},
either. {ko'a mlatu} is essentially like {le broda cu mlatu},
only that it is easier to figure out the referent I have in
mind for {le broda} (for a given broda) than the one I have
in mind for {ko'a}.

> Second, try doing {ro nanmu nelci lei ninmu} without
> using LE or POI.

ko'a ninmu gunma  i roda zo'u da nanmu nagi'a nelci ko'a

> Third, how does this show why you disagree
> with me (an attitude you adopt, I suspect, largely for the
> pleasure of being disputatious)?

Partly, I admit, but I do disagree that there is anything
fundamental about certain cmavo. If there was, the language would
be very poor indeed.

There are many ways of expressing the same idea. That holds for every
language, including Lojban. You can say that each way will express
a slight variation of the idea, but then you can't get away with
replacing {kau} by some circumlocution.

Certainly the language needs cmavo, and certainly some cmavo are
more useful than others, but I wouldn't call any one cmavo essential,
nor assume that there is a minimal set such that all others are
add-ons, and if you remove one from the minimal set then suddenly
you condemn a whole bunch of ideas to inexpressability.

And I don't think {kau} is any more of an add-on than most other
cmavo, which is what started this thread anyway.

Jorge