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While I'm thinking about the rest, tell me how you might do:
Some cat is black and some cat is white.
Some cat is black and every dog is black.
Every small cat is black and (every) large cat is white.
On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 8:05 PM, And Rosta <and.rosta@hidden.email> wrote:
> Jorge Llambías, On 11/09/2012 23:29:
>
> > lake gake je mlta ldre je xrma djce pnxake
> > (A,E)/(cat(A)&milk(E))+(horse(A)&water(E)): drink(A,E)
> >
> How would you do "Some cat ate each apple and some dog ate each peach"?
That one's indeed harder. One possibility is to do it with predicate
quantifiers:
lake gake je li mlti mnaki li plsi gmneki je li grki mnaki li ptci gmneki ctkake
(A,E) / ( I/cat(I):among(A,I) & I/apple(I):the-group-of(E,I) )+(
I/dog(I):among(A,I) & I/peach(I):the-group-of(E,I): eat(A,E)
That's not any gain on:
je sa mlta re plse ctkake sa grka re ptce ctkake
Some A/cat(A): Each E/apple(E): eat(A,E) & Some A/dog(A): Each
E/peach(E): eat(A,E)
but it would be if there was a very long predicate instead of "ctkake".
> I don't have the time or headspace to offer a worked-out alternative, but
> the direction I'd try first would be, crudely, "la fa xa sma xi smi pnxaki
> li je hi la sma mlta la sma ldra hi la sma xrma la sma djca [something akin
> to ckaji]ika", where hV creates a structured list and the ckj-ish predicate
> has a built in convention for the order in which the members of its x1
> argument bind the x variables in its x2 argument. The meaning is something
> like "the relation such that xa drinks xi holds between the cat and the milk
> and between the horse and the water".
I considered an ordered version of g- too, but wouldn't you want "hi
mlti ldri" rather than "hi la sma mlta la sma ldra"? (If we do need an
ordered version of g-, I'd rather use p- than h-) And don't you need
"li gi" rather than "li je"?
la fa xa sma xi smi pnxaki li gi pi mlti ldri pi xrmi djci prsckjika
A/"What eats what": I/ (cat(I)>milk(I))+(horse(I)>water(I)):
are-in-relationship(I,A)
> The "some cat, each apple" one might be harder, and is too much for me at
> this time of the academic year.
>
> You might also want to think about:
>
> (i) How to answer multiple xi wh-questions: "
> A: Who drank what?
> B: the cat the milk and the horse the water
We still haven't even talked about how to answer single xi questions
yet. We may need something like Lojban's "go'i":
A: ca'i xa sma le ldre pnxake
Who drank the milk?
B: mlta
B's answer would be short for "(la sma) mlta" with the implicit
binding rule, although in this case it might be better if it was: "(la
le ldre pnxake) mlta". But really the proper answer should be:
B: la mlta gxa
with "gxa" standing for "le ldre pnxake".
As for "who drank what?", I guess
je la mlta le ldre gxake la xrma le djce gxake
or:
lake gake je mlta ldre je xrma djce gxake
> (ii) clefty focusy stuff that English can't do:
> "It was the cat the milk that _ drank _"
> (= It was the cat drank the milk and the milk the cat drank)
I'm not sure I follow that one, but you have these eight structures to
choose from:
la mlta le ldre pnxake
le ldre la mlta pnxake
la mlta le pnxake ldre
le ldre la pnxake mlta
le la mlta pnxake ldre
le la pnxake mlta ldre
la le ldre pnxake mlta
la le pnxake ldre mlta
ma'a xrxe
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