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Re: [engelang] Xorban: Termsets



Jorge Llamb�as, On 12/09/2012 02:28:
On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 8:05 PM, And Rosta<and.rosta@hidden.email>  wrote:
Jorge Llamb�as, 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".

Can you say things like

"laki mmtaki prmaki"

"laki je mlta ldri pnxaki"

?

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"?

Yes, "li gi" and "hi mlti ldri".
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)

Right. I'm not sure which I like more (or less) out of your suggestion and your tidied-up version of mine.


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".

or

la mlta prsckjiko'i

[where o'i = go'i, la'e di'u]
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

or

li gi pi mlti ldri pi xrmi djci prsckjiko'i

(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,

It was the cat drank the milk:

la fa xa sma li ldri pnxaki li mlti prsckjika

It was <[the cat]1, [the milk]2> that _1 drank _2:

la fa xa sma xi smi pnxaki li pi mlti ldri prsckjika

--And.