Re: [engelang] Xorban compounding revisited - engelang messages

On Thu, Oct 11, 2012 at 3:13 PM, selpa'i <seladwa@hidden.email> wrote:

Some thoughts about compositional compounds, mixed with some random
thoughts about other things.

I would say there are (at least) three types of compounds: (I thought
four, but Xorban isn't Lojban as I'm beginning to realize more and more)
1. Parallel compounds (Lojban "je")
2. Transitive compounds
x. [removed]
3. Loose, metaphorical compounds, tanru.

Out of curiosity what was the removed type between 2 & 3?

1. Parallel compounds

All places of the two predicates are shared, e.g. "ta xunre je zdani" -
"that is red and a house of someone". These compounds are rather rare in
Lojban because it has such long place structures, which means it's rare
to find a time where all places would properly aline and work together
to make sense. This is where shorter place structures and more regular
place structures come in handy. However, since it seems that in Xorban,
a predicate always has as many places as are being filled, this doesn't
seem to be a problem.
Parallel compounds in Xorban are easily handled with "je".

la zdnaka'a je xnra dnja
My home is a red building.

When specifically "je" is used, I've also called them intersective, since {a | je xnra dnja} can be conceived (and *should* be conceived IMHO) as the intersection of {a | xnra} and {a | dnja}. Also notable is "ju" which is similar to "je" but entails that things happen in the same event.

2. Transitive compounds

These are common in Lojbanic languages. One example are the -gau lujvo,
e.g. "kakygau" decomposes into "gasnu lo nu klaku", that is, the first
part of the lujvo gets inserted in a place of the right part of the
lujvo. Right now, these can be handled using the usual Xorban syntax,
but it's a bit clumsy sometimes.

la mmtaka'a le fe klka'a gsnake
My mother brought about that I cried.

[As Jorge has already pointed out] Xorban has unary operator b- to cover this *particular* case.

Note that instead of the usual gasnu definition x1 brings about x2 (fa),
we could also use a slightly different one: x1 makes that x2 does/is x3
(fa). Trying to use this makes me note that it's not possible, since
Xorban requires every formula to have a desinence, and there is
currently no variable that refers to a ce'u-like thing, if there were,
however, then:

la mmtaka'a le fe klke'u gsnaka'ake

Here, klke'u is a sort of abstract infinitive, and is filled
automatically by whatever is in the x2 of the (altered) gasnu.

This solution is yet longer than the first, though, so maybe this kind
of place structure isn't the best for Xorban.

Jorge beat me to this one too. I would also use something like "glf". We think alike sometimes.

In general I think that X's "l-" is going to swallow up a lot of L's "ka" places, because, in X, a bound variable can appear anywhere in a restriction just as "ce'u" can appear anywhere in a sumti under "ka", and since many predicate places are semantically unambiguous about how that place is supposed to be filled, there's often no need to express the "lo/lo ka" distinction in syntax/periphrasis. There may be a few exceptions though; those can be handled by a predicate meaning "x1 is a property of being x2" where x2 is again a simple "l-"-bound restriction.

Anyway, these are fine as normal sentences, but I think they could be
shortened a little bit by introducing a new binary operator that creates
transitive compounds. If possible, I would propose "jo", otherwise, pick
one that would work.

I want to explore your idea, but I'm not sure about "jo", so I'll assign "hi'u" for your "jo" in my unofficial list.

The semantics of "jo" would be that one of the left formula's places
gets filled with the right formula, depending on which ones have the
same type (event of concrete), and it would also be hard-coded into
place structures which places get filled in such compounds.

Here's an example:

la mlta jo gsna'a plpa
The cat, I make that she jumps
I made the cat jump.

The other sentence becomes:

la mmtaka'a jo gsna klka'a
My mother, she made me cry.

Now, I know that gsna there according to some would not at all refer to
anything but the thing bound by A. But I think that this can be coded
into the semantics of "jo", which I'll explain below.

I have been thinking of an operator similar to yours, but with different issues in mind. For example

la tfa hi'uka lnta trca
= la tfa je li trci lntaki trca
"That is a small thing by star standards, and a star"
"That is a small star"

versus

la tfa je lnta trca
"That is a small thing by some standard, and a star"

... which works pragmatically of course but why not allow a person to easily say exactly what he means.

Similar to what you were saying, the right part is an argument of the left part even while being coordinated in other aspects. However in your idea, it is the event of the right side that is the argument, whereas in my idea the thingamajigs are the argument. So my idea needs a variable to name the rightside thingamajig and your idea can work by the convention that the absence of the variable signals that the (anonymous) event is the argument. Your sentences would be:

la mlta hi'u gsna'a plpa
= la mlta lo fo plpa gsna'ako
The cat, I make that she jumps
I made the cat jump.

la mmtaka'a jo gsna klka'a
= la mmtaka'a lo fo klka'a gsnako
My mother, she made me cry.

We've already seen "b-" handles these particulars, but there may be other cases in which "hi'u" might be useful.

I also have a potential problem with the idea that bcda only has one
place. Namely, it causes some weird situations like this one:

A: "la rcta ctke'eka"
B: "na ctka'a"

A: "Do you eat meat."
B: "I don't eat."

Now here, B would be lying if they were eating something else. This
meanas that Xorban doesn't let you elide things as easily, which is why
I'm not sure it's good to say that there be no zo'e in ctka at all.

(FYI "cu" is the question particle, an illocutionary operator). This is a tricky issue that we haven't gotten into yet on the Xorban list. My own preference would be

B. na ctka'aka
B. "I don't eat it".

where explicitly unbound "a" in the answer is implicitly bound by "la rcta" from the actual question. But some Xorbanists don't like implicit bindings like this, and I know there are languages which handle these pragmatics as you prefer. So, I can't say that your preference wouldn't work or wouldn't be accepted. I can only say that my intuition is that my way is worth the syllable. :-)

Anyway, the way "jo" could handle this semantic problem is by saying
that jo FORMULA is a new formula whose place structure (definition) is
determined by what is modifies. That is, in "jo gsna klka'a", the
following happens:

jo gsna becomes a modifier of klk, which thereby gets a new definition
determined from the compouding rules, such that "x1 cries" becomes "x1
cries caused by A".
Now we just add a desinence to this compound predicate, jo gsna klka'a,
which then means "I cry caused by A".

Here is another example to round it off:

la bdna jo tca kkta
Bananas are very delicious.

(I think tc- should be the root for "x1 is very x2 (fa) (unless you're
planning on introducing lambda calculus à la ka-ce'u into Xorban)).

I agree with Jorge again. That could be covered as:

la bdna li kkti tcaki
"bananas are very much delicious things"

...where "ka" just turns into "l-" in X.

3. Loose, metaphorical compounds

These are just to fill the gaps that remain. Sometimes, a human being
won't want to care about perfect logic and just throw together some
words freely. I had some other solutions for this, but again they seem
to be meant for a language other than Xorban. This suggestion seems to work:

cpno'e zfra'a
I am birdly free.
I am free as a bird.
Some other vague meaning.

Maybe it can be made even more referent-less, by using the
aforementioned -e'u variable:

cpne'u zfra'a

I hope some of this is useful and that I didn't forget anything.

co q selpahi qa'a