Re: Meaning of BAI tags

[Chris Bogart <cbogart@QUETZAL.COM>]

>Sentences like "I opened the door with my foot" and "I taught math
>in Spanish" should clearly be false if I used my hand or spoke English,

Absolutely -- I'm not advocating that {P bai S} be identical to {P}, just
that it should imply {P}.  {P} definitely should not imply {P bai S}!

>but "open" has no tool place, and "teach" no language place, so we
>must add then with BAIs.  If we don't give the BAI places full status
>as arguments to the predication just like the brivla places, there's
>no other way to form these new predications except awkward tanru.

I do advocate giving the bai's full status as places.  In fact I think you
should be able to drop *any* place in a true predication and have the
result still be true.  If you opened the door with your foot, it should
follow that you opened the door.  If you taught math in Spanish, it
should follow that you taught math, and more generally, that you
have taught.  This useful for software that's looking through
Lojban resumes trying to find math teachers to hire.  If it sees "Lee
taught Math in Spanish" and *can't* conclude that you have taught
math, you'll be left out in favor of people who simply wrote "I taught
math", without specifying a language or any other optional tag.

But on the other hand, if the program is looking for people who have
taught in Spanish, and it sees that "la kris pu ctuca" (Chris taught),
it should NOT be able to conclude that "la kris pu ctuca bau la spano".
(Chris taught in Spanish).  I don't propose making BAIs irrelevant!

co'o mi'e kris