Re: [engelang] reformulating the core grammar - engelang messages

On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 2:23 PM, John E Clifford <kali9putra@hidden.email> wrote:

From: Mike S. <maikxlx@gmail.com>

Word classes, each phonologically distinct, though their forms are not decided.
predicates (each of fixed adicity, though this important feature is not, apparently, to be marked)

It's marked by the number of variables that appear, no?

Well, not necessarily, although we would have to have rules for dealing with excess or deficit. The point is that if we simply take the number that appear as the correct number, there is no necessary connection then with the dictionary specification. We can do this by referring to the dictionary for each case, of course, but an overt marker would be shorter processing.

And's idea is that every underlying predicate has a required adicity that has to be filled explicitly by variables, and that every distinct phonological stem + adicy combination represents exactly one of these underlying predicates. In practice, simple formulas with the same stem but different adicities would be families of related predicates that would (often at least) be no different than assuming elided "o'e" in the outer places.

Be that as it may, no one TTBOMK has an comprehensive plan for predicate design at the current time so that's all hypothetical right now.

One idea that has not been floated would yet be reversing the conventional order of arguments; in other words, the rightmost variable would be the x1, and x2 would be the next leftward one, etc. It would make some sense in this language which tends to be strongly head-final to make the most salient argument (x1) final. e.g.

la mlta vska = The cat sees [something]
la mlta le grke vskeka = The cat sees the dog

Any takers?

names (any phonemic string enclosed in audible quotes. these are ranked with predicates and are either monadic -- in which case no naming operator is needed -- or medadic -- in which case, they enter formula only as complements to the naming operator)

The "mV {formula}" naming convention provides a place for a required variable immediately after the m. Therefore I think that we have to call it a monad.

You seem to be separating m (or whatever the realization will be) from the quotation predicates (names). I still don't understand how m is supposed to work.

Does this help? q{formula}qa <=> ma {formula}

                     a predicate maker followed by a variable followed by a formula (in the case of naming, followed by a name) (variable remains bound or free as before)
                     a binary propositional connective followed by two formulas (binding and freedom remain unchanged)
                     a quantifier followed by a variable followed by two formulas (free occurrences of the indicated variable in the complements are now bound by this quantifier, as is the indicated variable, otherwise bondage and freedom are unchanged. Well, the situation of bound occurrences of the indicated variable in the complements is up for discussion)

IMHO: A quantifier does not affect already bound variables under its scope. In other words, inner bindings take precedence over outer ones.

I agree, but the discussion of binding is either incomplete or in flux so that other approaches might be used (l overriding internal s, for example).

O, that way madness lies. Luckily, no one has suggested we go that way. I really hope that no one will.

a speech act indicator followed by a formula (binding and freedom unchanged) this is also called a sentence.
any of the above with interjections before, between or after mentioned components (not between predicate makers or quantifiers and their variables).

I haven't touched on termsets because a) I am not through absorbing the going model and comparing it with my sketches and 2) I think any static description is bound to be inadequate and/or misleading, while only logic to language transformations will cover the possibilities (the lack of these in Lojban is yet another reason why the Lojban to logic translations are so non-trivial, if not non-existent).

The "term tree" proposals still up in the air enable straightforward rewritings of the logical forms that we already have, extracting an otherwise repeated (possibly long) predication from one or more clauses and applying it distributively once. They're syntactic sugar, nothing more.

But an essential bit of sugar for a successful language. The need to say everything over and over is a major flaw in logical systems for use as languages. That is, we need to have them but exactly how to express them and how to build the rules for constructing them is a trickier matter. MY notes are simple but incomplete and getting prolix, your appear less prolix but much more complex -- I haven't worked on completeness yet.