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On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 8:17 PM, Mike S. <maikxlx@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I hadn't seen the full thread on Jboske until yesterday. I think it's
> perfectly sensible to reserve two variables for "me" and "you". This is
> pretty much what deictic references are, variables bound by discourse
> circumstances. We'd probably want several of these, actually.
I was thinking of perhaps reserving the 25 V'V variables for
pre-assigned or assignable constants.
> Thank you for giving me a glimpse of how And's event slots work and are
> meant to be be used. Has there been a previous discussion/description of
> them anywhere on Jboske or Conlang-L or elsewhere?
He has talked about them on the Lojban list at least, but years ago.
I'm afraid I can't give you specific references.
>> la le nnle li nxli tvlekifa vska'aka
>> The x which the y which is a boy the z which is a girl, y talks to z
>> in x, I see x
>> I see the boy talking to the girl.
>
> I take it that the {l-} encodes something like specificity or
> definiteness, but what is the exact meaning and logical mechanism?
All I know is that the variable quantified by l- acts basically like a
constant, if that's what you call specific/definite.
> What are
> the other basic quantifiers? {r-} for universal and perhaps {s-} for
> existential?
Those are the ones I have so far. I don't want to include Lojban's
"no" because it can easily be obtained as "na s-" and so it's not
worth wasing a C- on that. Same for "na r-". Perhaps we may add "m-"
for "many".
> How are generics as in "I like chocolate" handled in this language?
So far with "l-". That's how I handle them in Lojban, with "lo". "la
ckla nlca'aka".
>> Alternatively, and perhaps easier to parse:
>>
>> la nnla le nxle li tvlakefi vska'aki
>> The boy, the girl, the event in which he talks to her, I see it.
>>
>> Also perhaps things like:
>>
>> la nnla le nxle ri tvlekafi xnrafi
>> The boy, the girl, every time she talks to him, he blushes.
>
> Is the scope of {a} and {e} here wider than that of {e} and {i} in the
> earlier example?
The scope is completely determined by the parse. So:
la nnla: (le nxle: (ri tvlekafi: xnrafi))
But the logical properties of "l-" mean that you can move them around
quite freely, so:
le nxle: (la nnla: (ri tvlekafi: xnrafi))
has the same meaning, and so does:
ri (la nnla: (le nxle: tvlekafi)): xnrafi
> Are there situations in which variables like {a} "stick"
> and become essentially anaphora, and if so when?
I don't know. We could have some of the reserved variables behave this
way, but that would mean you have to plan in advance which argumants
you would want to keep around.
> In which situations are they short scope?
Definitely when bound by "r-" and "s-" they must stay within the
quantifier's scope. When bound by "l-" there's more room to play with.
>> One other thing I thought about is numbers. I would not make them
>> quantifiers as in Lojban, but just ordinary predicates: "x1 is one",
>> "x1 are two", "x1 are three", etc, basically Lojban's "PA mei". They
>> could be constructed by assigning a letter to each digit and then
>> reserving a prefix (say nm-) to form each predicate: nmpa "a is one",
>> nmra "a are two", nmxxxa "a are 666".
>
> I am curious about "noun phrase"/term syntax but I think I've asked enough
> questions for now.
The only connective we have so far is "je", so we can have:
la je nmca je xkra mlta je bjra le smce jrsake
"The three black cats run and chase mice."
The x such that (three(x) & (black(x) & cat(x))): (run(x) & (the y
such that mice(y): chase(x,y))
It would be nice to have something along the lines of your serial
predicates, but I can't just string predicates together with the
current grammar.
>> That's about all I have so far.
>
> It's a promising start. I hope that you will continue to develop it.
Only if there are more questions. :)
mu'o mi'e xorxes