Re: replies re. ka & mamta be ma

[jorge@PHYAST.PITT.EDU]

And:
> Whereas what you want to say is:
>
>   If you want to avoid use of {dei} then I "command" you to
>   make it the case that you use sentence S.
>
> The latter would be a literal use of {ko}, but I don't think
> it's doable without great circumlocution.

Right. I'll have to start minding my imperatives.

> > 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.
>
> I still don't think it's true, even on the distributive
> interpretation. "Every cmavo is not needed" entails "There
> is no cmavo that is needed",

Yes, just like there is no kidney that is (absolutely) needed.

> which surely means we could
> get by with a cmavoless language.

No. To say that none of the four legs of a table is essential for the
table not to fall is not like saying that the table won't fall if
it has no legs.

> Well, say {sohe} means "getting on for all" - then scopewise
> it behaves pretty much like {ro}. Say, for sake of argument,
> {sohe} is "75% of". Then "75% of camvo are unneeded" is very
> different from "It's not the case that 75% of cmavo are needed".

Are you saying that the latter allows for all cmavo to be needed?
Otherwise, I still don't see the difference. (Unless you are taking
75% as an exact number.)

> I don't want to reopen that discussion either. But I don't
> recall you claiming there were things that could not be
> said without {xe'e}, so I'd ask you to express the above
> in a way such that I know how to translate it into pred
> calc.

You know what that would be: {do nitcu le ka do ponse lo kidney}.
We've been down this road before.


> The poi clause gives you info about the sumti, but not about the
> relationship holding between the sumti and the other sumti. It's
> the difference between.
>
>    tavla bau lo jbobau
>    tavla dohe da poi jbobau
>
> The former tells you the talking is done in Lojban, while the
> latter tells you only that the talking somehow involves Lojban.

Yes, I meant to say that you can expand the poi clause as much as you
like in order to explain the relationship, for example

        tavla bau lo jbobau

goes to

        tavla do'e lo jbobau poi bangu fi le se tavla

or you can make it as specific as {bau} is supposed to be by adding all
the extra information that it gives.

> > >   klama fo da ku fo de .i
> > >   klama bai da ku bai de
> Another bugoid, I reckon. English doesn't allow it, at least not with
> complements.

Well, you can say things like "he was at home at three", but I guess
you'd say that "at" is two different words there. Or "he plays with
the car with John".

> > But how is that semantic relationship any
> >  more specific than with {do'e}+appropriate explanatory sub-clauses?
>
> As for the former question, let us imagine we wish to classify
> plants by what they make. A plant producing threads of cloth could
> be:
>     lo spati be fiho zbasu lo bukpu cilta
> From that you can at least surmise that what is meant is not, say,
> plants that look like cloth threads. In contrast, from
>     lo spati be dohe da poi bukpu cilta
> you know only that the referent is something that somehow has to do
> with cloth threads.

But that was not my proposed replacement. I said replace {fi'o broda da}
with {do'e da poi broda}. In this case, it gives

        lo spati be do'e lo bukpu cilta poi zbasu

(I guess you really meant {fi'o se zbasu}, then it's {do'e lo bukpu cilta
poi se zbasu})

And you can expand the clause to make clear that the {zbasu} is the plant.

> Okay then: anaphors are an add-on convenience. But let us make
> a distinction between conveniences for avoiding the merely cumbersome
> from conveniences for avoiding the impossibly cumbersome.

I consider the avoidance of {kau} impossibly cumbersome. Or is there
an objective measure of cumbersomeness?

> > ki'o  =  ,  =  ,000  =  1,000  (by convention).
>                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Didn't know that bit. Where do you find this stuff out?

Either I read it in one of John's papers, or I made it up. Hopefully
the former.

> > And if I ask which method is more general, I suppose it is the
> > more basic one?  :)
> No, the more general method is the one used in the most constructions
> (so long as it is used with the same grammar in each construction).

"Most" as in "most frequent" or as in "most possible".

I assume you'll want "most possible". What if there are infinite
possibilities for both?

> I can't think of an actual example offhand, so here's an imaginary
> one. Suppose we had two ways of expressing numbers, but one way
> could be used in all contexts where PA can, but the other way worked
> only when descriptored by {li}. The first way would be the more
> general and the more basic.

It is hard to think of an actual example because cmavo are much more
intertwined than that. I agree that having one cmavo doing nothing but
repeat what another does would not be useful. I don't think that there
are many that do that, though.

> > > 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
>
> Well done. Does that differ from {ro nanmu nelci *loi* ninmu}?

Yes, that one would be:

 roda de zo'u tu'e de ninmu gunma pagbu
                   ije da nanmu nagi'a nelci de tu'u

> Every lg needs a word/morpheme for "1", but doesn't need one
> word/morpheme for "7582342".

Needs? Lojban could do without {pa} if it keeps all the other PAs.
Or you could use things like {le namcu pe le solri be le terdi}
or some other thing that is unique. Why should 1 necessarily be a single
word/morpheme? What do you mean here by "need"?

> > There are many ways of expressing the same idea. That holds for every
> > language, including Lojban.
>
> And so it follows by my reasoning that you cd get away with having
> only one way.

How does that follow? In fact, I doubt that you could device a language
for standard human comunication in which each idea can be expressed in
a unique single way.

> > 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.
>
> Is lahe the "condemn"-clause what you wouldn't assume? (Your sentence is
> ambiguous: do you mean "and *that* if you remove"?)

Yes, that's what I meant.

> I don't understand how you can claim what you do. Suppose you had to
> devise a notation for all numbers. You could use as many symbols as
> there are numbers. Or you could use fewer symbols but add a grammar
> for interpreting combinations of symbols. As you use fewer and fewer
> symbols you'd come to an irreducible minimum. One symbol alone will
> not suffice. I guess some mathematician has worked out how few will
> suffice.

Two. It's called binary notation ;)

But then expressing ideas is not as simple as finding a notation for
numbers, nor is it simple (maybe impossible in some cases) to say when
two ideas are the same, which you need to do in order to check whether
you are duplicating some of them or not.

Jorge