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It seems to me that we are all essentially in agreement on these matters. It was never a design goal of Lojban that every sentence yield a determinate (even if underspecified) logical formula. And, true to its design goals, it doesn't. From the outset, the Lojban project took the view that it was better to have a half-baked loglang that was actively used by a sizable community than to have a fully-baked loglang that was never actually used for communication. It's fair to say that the Lojban project is succeeding very well with its avowed aims, and that as a loglang it is half-baked. --And. >>> jcowan@hidden.email 06/10/02 11:19am >>> maikxlx scripsit: > At this point, I feel it is highly debateable > whether the syntax represents the logical structure. Lo*an > sentences, like natlangs sentences, parse into trees with > a verb at the head node and NP's as separate subtrees. > Quantifiers are definitely subsumed by these NP-subtrees. > Which is to say, technically their scope can't be said to go > beyond the subtree of which they are a part, unless some > device such as an anaphor is introduced in the other branch. The grammars are not intended to produce "logical scope" parses. Scope is defined in the prose part of the definition. > In other words, the grouping and precedence of logic and > grammar simply don't line up. What is troublesome to me is > not working out some trivial example such as <ro nanmu cu > prami lo ninmu>, but rather what happens when we start trying > to represent much more complex expressions. In fact this parses as (ro nanmu) (cu prami (lo ninmu)), but this does not mean that "lo ninmu" is bound more closely to the predicate than "ro nanmu". The deductions you are trying to draw are simply illegitimate. > The feeling I almost > get is that we'd virtually have to pioneer our very own > theoretical semantics to make it rigorous. Indeed, which is why no such claims of semantic rigor are made. Lojban does not have the "John is easy/eager to please" type of polysyntax, that's all. -- John Cowan <jcowan@hidden.email> http://www.reutershealth.com I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen, http://www.ccil.org/~cowan han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith. --Galadriel, _LOTR:FOTR_ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: engelang-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/